The evolution of beauty

Background: In his recent book, "The Evolution of Beauty", Richard Prum argues that due to the legacy of A.R. Wallace, the concept of sexual selection has been blended into the concept of natural selection by assuming that sexual selection operates on the same fitness aspects than natural selection. According to him, this development is misguided and sexual selection should be understood as a complementary force to natural selection, whose effect can be on the same or in opposite direction as natural selection. He advocates that sexual selection gives rise to the emergence of beauty both in terms of production and perception, which must be understood independently from fitness considerations (but within an evolutionary process). This emergence is captured by the Fisher runaway process explaining extravagant male traits such as the peacock display and formalized by the Lande-Kirkpatrick models of sexual selection.

Goal: The goal of this project to investigate and simulate the Lande-Kirkpatrick model of natural selection (and if time permits simulate the evolution of beauty and a 2d shape toy world)

Computational Tools: Programming will be done in Python

Mathematical tools: Difference equations are used to model the sexual selection process

Biological or Medical aspects: The theory of sexual selection

Supervisor: Micha

Report: pdf file