Introduction: Beauty and nature

Abstract

In a world where it seems best to go unnoticed, many creatures display their beauty in plain sight. We could even say that we are surrounded by beauty. A diverse and overwhelming beauty that inspires artists and engineers, one that scientists have tried (and keep trying) to study and understand. In this Metode SSJ monograph we will see how science has searched for the evolutionary causes of sexual beauty in the process of mate choice and self-perpetuation, necessarily adopting the point of view of each organism and studying how beauty is perceived species by species. As the famous phrase, attributed to various literary figures, reminds us, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.