The Evolution of Beauty’s Spell

wonder what the impetus was that shifted the human mind to alter vision solely to detect danger toward an appreciation for beauty. It was a massive change with a potentially detrimental downside. Becoming distracted by the beautiful could leave one exposed, thus vulnerable to menacing actors. The change had to be gradual. If ancient hominids had the same draw to beauty as we do today, they would likely have been erased from the evolutionary tree by susceptibility to predation. There are numerous indicators that our ancient hominid ancestors had a visceral aesthetic attraction at least as far back as our Neanderthal cousins.