How does “Love” and “Beauty” fit into the theory of Evolution?

Zach H: How does “Love” and “Beauty” fit into the theory of Evolution?
I recently renounced Christianity and am now an atheist. While I have seen the fallacies of Christianity, I am struggling with some questions that I believed to know the answer too, but now find myself pondering. I thought you guys could give your input. =)

I have several questions that I would like you to answer, and I will post them each as a separate question with this same “detail” section. I also am not sure as to where my questions should be placed, so I will be posting them in several categories.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Caboose
They don’t.

Evolution is not a philosophy. It is not a religion. It is a biological theory, and only deals with such.

If you want to study love and beauty, you need to go to philosophy, psychology, and hell, even art class.

Now, love and beauty probably play their role in our evolution, but when you sit in biology class, I guarantee the topics won’t come up.

Answer by lainiebsky
Evolution is about biology, not philosophy. It’s not an overarching guide to life or a substitute for religion. It’s just a scientific theory about how species change. That’s all.

Answer by Raymond
the ideas of love and beauty weren’t “created” by Christianity, can’t you feel love or see beauty when you’re a Hindu? A Muslim? A pagan? Evolution just describes how we were created and how we’ve become what we are today in scientific terms, no more no less. Evolution doesn’t try to answer spiritual questions so don’t bother asking you’re science professor the meaning of life.

Answer by Gus
I’ve read that generally what we find attractive can often be associated with health and fitness to reproduce.

Answer by BlackJack
Love is a key component for social creatures, because it strengthens social bonds. Beauty is simply perception and I doubt it has any relation to evolution.

Answer by there is no spoon
They have a lot to do with it.

Evolution is about traits being passed from generation to generation. Love and beauty figure heavily into mating.

Look at how different birds have all these crazy mating displays…there’s your beauty. Love can be an important social development that helps parents, mates, etc. protect their gene pool by acting selflessly to defend them and help them.

Is that what you mean?

Answer by ⌡Machine Head⌠
Love: Pair bonding has clear survival value among social animals, even social animals that practice polygamy or polyandry.
Beauty: Finding potential mates attractive due to their appearance of survival fitness.

Answer by The Paul
Unless you’re looking for technical talk about the role of sex selection, the answer is that they do not.

The theory of evolution is several things: An explanation of biodiversity, the long-term effects of selection pressures and gene-pool shifts, a framework that can be used to predict and shape the attributes of domesticated or artificially bred species…

It is not a philosophy on life, an guideline for personal relationships, or a social framework. It is also not a theory of economics or cosmogenesis.

Asking how love and beauty fit into the theory of evolution is like asking where love and beauty fit into Newtonian physics.

I seems to sometimes be difficult for theists to understand that the theory of evolution is exactly what it says it is, and it is not a theory of everything.

A god is a theory of everything, the god is offered up as an explanation for the creation of the universe, the diversity of life on earth, questions of morality, absolutely everything.

Religious people sometimes seem to see the theory of evolution (primarily an explanation of biodiversity) as a challenge to their god, (a theory of everything) then criticize evolution based on an interpretation of evolution as a theory of everything (almost a god, really).

The truth is that evolution has little to nothing to do with most of the things asked of it or laid at its feet.

Answer by ʃosh Aℓfred Φ ℓogO҉ S ψ
Love – Is connection with others that share similar qualities, or who make one feel good about themselves. The evolution of love comes from rituals of mating, and connection between people, and kin.

Beauty – this is said to be in the “i” of the beholder. Beauty can be about being “sexually fitting” or it can mean a design that isn’t profane. Those things are of natural disgust such as vomit, are said to be not beautiful, and those things like the color of one’s eyes, or the sunset painting the sky are said to be beautiful because they arouse deep respect and awe, and are not contemptible.

I don’t know much about these two as far as it comes to evolution…not much has been written about the origin of the two.

@Caboose, these are fundamentally biological processes.

Answer by Pirate AM™
While we have nearly made “love” and “beauty” into near gods, the simple explanation is that “love”, which has many different meanings, offers a survival benefit and is seen in various other animal species. An example of this is that octopi will flirt with their mate even when not in their mating season.

As for “beauty”, it is easy to tell from looking at the various things that people consider beautiful that beauty is highly subjective and not an inherent property.

Answer by Somebody else’s Grandpa
Evolution cannot account for the development of the concepts of love and beauty. The result is that anyone who believes in evolution will pass the buck on this question, as you witness above.

Some would shuffle you off to philosophy, and others would shuffle you off to mating instincts. As one with the insight to ask this question, you know:

1. The very ability to philosophize needs to be accounted for.

2. There is a difference between the instinct to be attracted to a healthy mate, and the perception of beauty or feeling of love.

Please don’t mistake the nonsense you’ve renounced, for Christianity. True Christianity does not deny true science.

Let pseudoscience and pseudo-Christianity argue with each other until they’re blue in the face, but don’t let them bully you into thinking there is no answer to your question.

For further help to reconcile your insights with science:

Answer by jacob_v
At best love and beauty play only minor roles having more to do with sexual selection via aesthetics, which is common among many species (especially birds) where the males or females attract mates with elaborate mating displays. In the case of “love”, what we perceive to be love is probably analogous to why many species mate for life. It has to do with the formation of an attachment. These traits would be more important to specific species, though, than it is to the theory of evolution in general.