“Now healthy flowers are a sign of fertile land, likely to bear fruits and other treasures, and probably prey animals as well; so is it any wonder that humans evolved to be attracted to flowers?”
Hm… this is, of course, a wonderful essay, but I’d give 5:1 against that being the true reason humans are attracted to flowers. A generalized attraction to symmetry as a result of some sort of sexual selection would make more sense. And the whole story is guaranteed to be much more modulated by culture than here assumed. This is a classic evo-psych Just So Story (not that the field is wholly vacuous).
Perhaps the author is not endorsing that viewpoint though.
“Now healthy flowers are a sign of fertile land, likely to bear fruits and other treasures, and probably prey animals as well; so is it any wonder that humans evolved to be attracted to flowers?”
Hm… this is, of course, a wonderful essay, but I’d give 5:1 against that being the true reason humans are attracted to flowers. A generalized attraction to symmetry as a result of some sort of sexual selection would make more sense. And the whole story is guaranteed to be much more modulated by culture than here assumed. This is a classic evo-psych Just So Story (not that the field is wholly vacuous).
Perhaps the author is not endorsing that viewpoint though.