Why humans are wired to appreciate beauty

On this episode

About this episode

A late summer sunset, a peaceful, verdant forest, or a Shakespearean sonnet – these are all things that move us emotionally thanks to what we perceive as their beauty. But why is this so, why do environments, art, music, and even ideas move us so emotionally? In this episode, we’re joined by Prof Nicholas Humphrey, an evolutionary psychologist and author, to talk about his latest book, Why Is the World So Beautiful? Our Minds in Search of Nature’s Rhymes. He tells us how our sense of beauty is likely linked to our evolutionary tendency to seek out the patterns found in nature, why the appreciation of beauty seems to be unique to humans, and explains how our sense of beauty is anchored in…