beauty and Evolution

From Janie Cheaney in World...

We learned in junior high that certain atmospheric conditions produce the lighting effects [of a great sunrise], but the phenomenon itself sidesteps science and produces an answering cry in the soul. The heavens declare the glory of God at every hour, but sometimes, in these cracks between day and night, they shout....That's the real phenomenon: not that the sight can be glorious, but that we recognize it as glorious...

Dennis Dutton examines that question in The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution...What primal purpose is served by "the art instinct"? First, it aids natural selection by giving humans an imaginative edge over predators....

Fascinating, but purely speculative. Art is an imaginative exercise that depends on language, and the evolutionary psychologist can't explain where language came from. Even more vexingly, no one can chart that great leap from mindlessness to mind....

That's Evolution on the big questions: narrative laced with scientific flavor. Good stuff, I guess-- but more Story than Science.