ABSTRACT
At a stroke, natural selection deprived religious naturalism of its greatest single support beam. Darwin discovered a purely physical process that could generate biological organisms that function as though they had been consciously designed. The arts, for instance, are commonly thought to be good for people in any number of ways, giving them a sense of well-being or feelings of comfort. Art may help them to see deeper into the human psyche, aid convalescents in hospitals to recover more quickly, or give them a better appreciation of the natural world. Antibiotics and air-conditioning are advantageous for people, but unlike the eye, which is also advantageous, they are not evolved adaptations. By-products are a much more plausible class of possibilities for the arts. Erotic passion is saturated with intense sensations, bottomless emotions, fantasy, concord, danger, conflict, and the adventure of every kind of human intimacy and estrangement. The connections between eroticism and reproduction are obvious.
