Richard Prum
{{Short description|American ornithologist and evolutionary biologist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2021}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Richard Owen Prum
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1961}}
| birth_place =
| fields = Evolutionary biology, Ornithology
| workplaces = American Museum of Natural History
| alma_mater = Harvard University (AB)
University of Michigan (PhD)
| thesis_title =
| thesis_url =
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| doctoral_advisor =
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| notable_students =
| known_for = Avian biology
| awards = Fulbright Scholar (2001)
Guggenheim Fellowship (2007)
MacArthur Fellowship (2009)
Lewis Thomas Prize (2021)
| website = https://prumlab.yale.edu/
| footnotes =
| spouse = Ann Johnson Prum
}}
Richard O. Prum (born 1961) is an evolutionary biologist and ornithologist. He is the William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, as well as the head curator of vertebrate zoology at the university's Peabody Museum of Natural History.{{Cite web |title=Yale Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology |url=http://www.yale.edu/eeb/prum/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130621205226/http://www.yale.edu/eeb/prum/ |archive-date=2013-06-21 |website=Yale University}}{{cite news |last=Jabr |first=Ferris |title=How Beauty Is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution – The extravagant splendor of the animal kingdom can't be explained by natural selection alone — so how did it come to be? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/magazine/beauty-evolution-animal.html |date=January 9, 2019 |work=The New York Times |access-date=January 10, 2019 }} His 2017 book The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—and Us was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2017 by The New York Times{{cite news |author= |date=November 30, 2017 |title=The 10 Best Books of 2017 |work=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/books/review/10-best-books-2017.html |access-date=February 9, 2018}} and was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.{{Cite web |title=2018 Pulitzer Prizes |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2018 |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=pulitzer.org}}
Life and work
Prum describes himself as "an evolutionary ornithologist with broad interests in diverse topics, including phylogenetics, behavior, feathers, structural coloration, evolution and development, sexual selection, and historical biogeography."
{{external media
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| video1 = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-b8p-D4AzY&t=8s Ornithologist Richard Prum: 2009 MacArthur Fellow | MacArthur Foundation] (September 21, 2009).
|video2=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=128-i8ulC7o The Evolution of Beauty: Richard Prum at TEDxYale] (June 2, 2013).|video3=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oszg0NAG4WQ Richard Prum: Evolution and Beauty] at the Chicago Humanities Festival (November 15, 2017).|video4=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8X4jIpiKKc Richard Prum on Birds, Beauty, and Finding Your Own Way (full) | Conversations with Tyler] with the Mercatus Center (June 30, 2021).}}
Prum grew up in rural Vermont. He received his bachelor's degree at Harvard University in 1983 and completed his doctorate at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1989. He then worked at the American Museum of Natural History{{Cite journal |last=Prum |first=R.O. |date=1990-12-20 |title=A test of the monophyly of the manakins (Pipridae) and of the cotingas (Cotingidae) based on morphology |url=https://prumlab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/prum_1990_occ_pap.pdf |journal=Occasional Papers of the Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan |volume=723 |pages=1–44}} until 1991, when he became a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Kansas. After gradually losing his hearing throughout the early 1990s due to illness, Prum moved from primarily doing field work to conducting research on plumage pigmentation, feather evolution, and Darwin's sexual selection theory.{{Cite web |last=Greenwood |first=Veronique |date=2013-04-01 |title=Ornithologist is Reshaping Ideas of How Beauty Evolves |url=https://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/11-ornithologist-is-reshaping-ideas-of-how-beauty-evolves |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130404002618/https://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/11-ornithologist-is-reshaping-ideas-of-how-beauty-evolves |archive-date=2013-04-04 |website=Discover}} Prum was a Fulbright scholar to Brazil in 2001,{{Cite web |title=MacArthur Fellowship Recipients |url=https://eca.state.gov/fulbright/fulbright-alumni/notable-fulbrighters/macarthur-fellowship-recipients |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=eca.state.gov |language=en}} and he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007{{Cite web |title=Richard Owen Prum |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/richard-owen-prum/ |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |language=en-US}} and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009.{{Cite web |title=Richard Prum |url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2009/richard-prum |access-date=2022-12-28 |website=www.macfound.org |language=en}}
He released The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World – And Us, a book on the role of beauty in natural selection, in 2017.{{Cite news |last1=Dobbs |first1=David |title=Survival of the Prettiest |work=The New York Times |date=September 18, 2017 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/books/review/evolution-of-beauty-richard-prum-charles-darwin.html |issn=0362-4331 }} In 2021, he received the Lewis Thomas Prize for his "exceptional writing".{{Cite web |date=2021-04-26 |title=Evolutionary biologist and ornithologist Richard Prum receives the 2021 Lewis Thomas Prize |url=https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/30393-evolutionary-biologist-ornithologist-richard-prum-receives-2021-lewis-thomas-prize/ |access-date= |website=The Rockefeller University |language=en}}
Reception
In his book Survival of the Beautiful, David Rothenberg reflects on Prum's analysis of sexual selection in birds, considering whether female birds are exercising an aesthetic sense when they choose a mate. Rothenburg argues Prum's position, that the females' aesthetic choice is essentially arbitrary and decoupled from natural selection: anything the females begin to choose becomes what the males must have if they are to have any offspring.{{efn|Rothenberg, 2011. pp 74–101.{{Cite book |last=Rothenberg |first=David |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/707329321 |title=Survival of the beautiful : art, science, and evolution |date=2011 |publisher=Bloomsbury Press |isbn=978-1-60819-216-8 |edition=1st |location=New York |oclc=707329321}}}} The aesthetic aspect of sexual selection has been debated since the start of Darwinism in the nineteenth century. Prum is following Edward Bagnall Poulton, who was criticised by Alfred Russel Wallace for asserting "female preferences based on aesthetic considerations".{{Cite journal |last=Wallace |first=Alfred R. |date=1890-07-24 |title=The Colours of Animals |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/042289a0 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=42 |issue=1082 |pages=289–291 |doi=10.1038/042289a0 |s2cid=27117910 |issn=1476-4687}} In Rothenberg's words, Wallace "had no place for Darwin's love of beauty, caprice, and feminine whim".{{efn|Rothenberg, 2011. pp 36.}} Prum, on the other hand, considers art and male sexual display to be "coevolution of the work and its appreciation".{{efn|Rothenberg, 2011. pp. 101.}}
References
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External links
- Shufro, Cathy (Nov/Dec 2011). [https://web.archive.org/web/20220809020605/https://yalealumnimagazine.org/articles/3318-the-bird-filled-world-of-richard-prum "The bird-filled world of Richard Prum"]. yalealumnimagazine.org. Archived from [https://yalealumnimagazine.org/articles/3318-the-bird-filled-world-of-richard-prum the original] on 2022-08-09.
- Yee, Vivian; Zuckerman, Esther (October 9, 2009). [https://web.archive.org/web/20100302081805/http://www.yaledailynews.com/scene/scene-cover/2009/10/09/the-nature-of-genius/ "The nature of genius"]. Yale Daily News. Archived from [http://www.yaledailynews.com/scene/scene-cover/2009/10/09/the-nature-of-genius/ the original] on March 2, 2010.
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Category:American ornithologists
Category:Charles Darwin biographers
Category:American evolutionary biologists
Category:University of Michigan alumni
Category:Harvard University alumni
Category:Yale University faculty