Below is a clip of philosopher and founder of Arts & Letters Daily Dennis Dutton, trying to keep his head above water as he is interviewed on Colbert Nation.  It’s clear that Dutton’s arena is obviously more that of a TED summit than a Comedy Central chat show, but it is nonetheless refreshing to see new theories of aesthetics ‘discussed’ in mainstream media, in however distilled a manner.  It is also in a positive turn that Dutton’s book, in that it approaches aesthetics from a multidisciplinary point of view — biology, genetics, neuroscience — will receive attention from a more broad audience than those purely interested in art history.  Since Dutton’s rejoinders to Colbert’s overwhelming schtick are far less articulate than they would be if Dutton had had a Power Point presentation behind him, below the video you will find  a link to the first chapter of The Art Instinct on the New York Times website, as well as to Dutton’s Edge talk, introduced by supergenius Stephen Pinker.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/books/chapters/chapter-art-instinct.html

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dutton09/dutton09_index.html