Darwin vs The Peacock's Tail: The ‘Fatal' Problem of Beauty for Darwin

In a letter to Asa Gray in 1860 Charles Darwin stated "The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!" Why did it make him sick? Well, because beauty is fatal to his theory. As he stated elsewhere in his book, some naturalists "believe that very many structures have been created for beauty in the eyes of man, or for mere variety. This doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory.” In order to combat this fatal problem that beauty presented to his theory, Darwin came up with 'sexual selection' to supplement natural selection. In The Origin of Species Darwin stated, "Sir R. Heron has described how a pied peacock was eminently attractive to all his hen birds. I cannot here enter on the necessary details; but, I can see no good reason to doubt that female birds, by selecting, during thousands of generations, the most melodious or beautiful males according to their standard of beauty, might produce a marked effect”. Notice that he wasn’t sure of his claim, but supposed it could be true. Yet, when scientists actually tested his idea, it failed. In a 2008 paper titled "Peahens do not prefer peacocks with more elaborate trains" researchers at the University of Tokyo studied peacocks and peahens in a zoo for seven years. To their surprise, they found that females mated with drab-tailed peacocks just as often as with the flashy males! They concluded that the peacocks’ tails were not the reason for the females’ attraction to a partner-a result that is clearly at odds with Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. So much for sexual selection saving Darwin's theory from the beauty of the peacock's tail. But, aside from the peacock's tail, and as Darwin himself alluded to, beauty in and of itself presents a fatal problem for Darwin's theory. For Darwin's theory, Beauty is merely a subjective experience of the material brain, not an objective external, immaterial, reality. In short, atheists are at a complete loss to explain the existence of beauty. In a 2013 article titled "Beauty Evades the Clutches of Materialism" which looked at a study by a neurobiologist titled “Neuroaesthetics and the Trouble with Beauty.”, it is stated "Conway and Behding basically “give up” on the idea that science can explain beauty." The reason why neuroscience can't ever explain the existence of beauty is quite simple, as philosopher Frank Jackson illustrated in thought experiment "Mary's Room", no matter how much scientific knowledge we have about the color blue, we will not know what the color blue actually is until we experience it first hand. And as with the color blue, so to it is with beauty. No amount of scientific knowledge will ever tell you what beauty truly is until you experience it first hand. This brings us to Saint Augustine's 'argument from beauty'. Augustine stated 'Beauty, can be appreciated only by the mind. This would be impossible, if this ‘idea’ of beauty were not found in the Mind in a more perfect form". Likewise Thomas Aquinas asserted, God “is beauty itself”. As well Saint Anselm argued that “God must be the supreme beauty for the same reasons that He must be justice and other such qualities.” And as Albert Mohler explains, "When we gaze upon ascetically pleasing objects or witness kind deeds in this world, we are at best seeing imperfect versions of the pure beauty that can only be found in God." Thus in conclusion, it is no wonder the peacock's tail made Darwin sick, and that he considered the existence of beauty fatal to his theory. Beauty inexorably points to God.