Some old problems never die ... or fade away. A problem nagging Charles Darwin to the end of his days was that of the peacock's tail. To a human, this beautiful thing appears to exhibit survival not of the fittest, but of the unfit. Yet the human species itself, as well as pets artificially selected by humans, also represent misfits in nature.

With reference to the exquisitely beautiful tail of the peacock, Darwin wriggled out of the problem by assigning to the general animal female a human-like aesthetic sense. The females had produced the fancy males by preferring them as mates generation after generation. Darwin admitted that attributing an appreciation of beauty for the sake of beauty to a female bird was somewhat incredible, but how else could the origin of fancy-male species be explained?

Due to lack of evidence in its favor, the theory died a natural death. Likewise, Darwin's methods of attributing a human-like aesthetic sense to animals (anthropomorphism) became largely taboo in scientific reports.

As of late, however, Darwin's theory has been resurrected. Today there are many students who claim that female animals are conscious of beauty for the sake of beauty and choose mates on this basis. In fact, Donald Griffin (known for his studies of echo location in bats) insists that the entire problem of animal consciousness is due for re-examination. His advocacy has spawned an enormous number of modern anthropomorphic interpretations of animal behavior. How valid are these? All this is treated in Mr. Darwin Misread Miss Peacock's Mind.

Darwin's problems with fancy males would have been greatly reduced had he known that the ostentatious adornment was involved (somewhat subtly) in male-male competition for mating territories, and that this could explain the origin of much of the adornment.

But beyond this, many present-day students still maintain that at least part of the explanation for the origin of fancy males involves female choice. In support of this, some authors resort to many highly convoluted anthropomorphic interpretations that outdo even those of Darwin. Birds are seen as possessing a knowledge of population genetics in near mystical proportions. The female can evaluate the "fitness genes" of a male on the basis of intricate plumage designs, following a principle of "handicaps."

Mr. Darwin Misread Miss Peacock's Mind develops the idea that attraction of a female to a male warrants a straightforward stimulus-response interpretation. The female is driven by response to a food stimulus. The food may be found in the territory of the male or may be pictorially represented on the plumage of the male. The female obeys the laws of plain, old-fashioned home economics! Courtship-feeding is seen as a method of bringing together creatures of similar tastes and physiologies. The ensuing mate selection results in genetic specialization to differing food niches, finally resulting in species formation.

Being hotly debated today by students of nature is whether animals are conscious of human-like abstractions. An aim of Mr. Darwin Misread Miss Peacock's Mind is to point out the dangers of interpretations of animal behavior in terms of human consciousness. In fact, the entire concept that non-humans are capable of abstract consciousness is questioned. Personal observations of apparent natural ingenuity among animals (including brainless, and therefore presumably unconscious, single-celled protozoans) are provided.

Also presented in this book are some new ideas about the role of colorful pigments of animals as related to adaptation to the earth's environments. Further, the book reviews the histories of evolution, sexual selection, and animal psychology. The aim is to yield balanced and integrated interpretations of life on this planet. This is an attempt to bring genetics, aesthetics, and dietetics under one umbrella.

How we interpret nature, whether with subjective or more objective methods, may well affect the way we treat "all creatures great and small." This book is eminently readable, not only by specialists, but also by a far wider audience of people who care about -- and are fascinated with -- the natural world.