On Dutton's TED Talk

At the end of his lecture, Dutton concludes by arguing that one’s conception of beauty is a result of evolution, and clearly not culture. While I think he presents strong evidence throughout his lecture that evolution plays a role in what one determines to be beautiful (e.g., hand axes, fitness signals, objectively beautiful landscapes), I think that it’s inaccurate to preclude culture as a factor, as Dutton does. To say that one’s culture doesn’t play a larger part than evolutionary influences in what one finds to be beautiful contradicts how I believe beauty works.

I think I disagree strongly because I believe that the conception of most, if not all things, is determined or strongly influenced by one’s culture – and especially when the conception varies from person to person as much as beauty’s does. I wouldn’t say that I’m anti-science – I’m confident in it where I think it matters (like in political contexts – for example, climate change and vaccines), but in general, I’ve found that I’m usually skeptical that science can explain all phenomena. In part, I think this skepticism is important to me because it gives me reason for why we don’t know about the things we don’t know about; there are myths that can’t be explained away by scientific answers which often just leave people dissatisfied. Additionally, the fact that science constantly disproves previous scientific theories leaves me to intuitively distrust the scientific process as an answer for everything, in a way that I understand isn’t totally rational. That Dutton argues for an explanation of beauty which leaves little to no room for the role that one’s culture plays in influencing what is perceived – bothers me – because it seems intellectually dishonest. Because of course culture plays a large role in how we perceive things. For example, Dutton at once claims that beautiful artistic works are those which are complex, because they convey fitness signals; but he also presents Plato’s theory that beauty stems from an object’s simplicity – he just doesn’t interact with this theory because it would contradict his. Or, maybe because his TED Talk can only be so long. But either way, it seemed to me that his theory left something to be desired in that it didn’t really interact with other theories of beauty.

I think that maybe Dutton and I would be acting out the ‘science wars’ in that he insists that the reason for beauty is purely evolutionary (i.e. from science), and that I think that one’s conception of beauty probably depends more on one’s cultural background. It’s important because Dutton’s theory, I think, relies on a post hoc fallacy. He looks at historical examples and tries to make them necessitate causation when they actually don’t (e.g., he says that our origin from the savanna is why we think savanna-like landscapes are pretty – but really, this could be for other reasons, or for no reason at all). Because of this, Dutton’s theory doesn’t even really seem like good science (to me, at least) – regardless of how it might unnecessarily discount the role that culture plays in the conception of beauty. So whether you see yourself as more scientifically or culturally oriented, Dutton’s theory might disappoint you – the stakes being the popularization of sensational but flawed science, or the popularization of the belief that everything has an objective answer.