The Wondering Brain: Thinking about Religion With and Beyond Cognitive Neuroscience by Bulkeley Kelly

Author:Bulkeley, Kelly [Bulkeley, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2005-07-08T04:00:00+00:00

Humans are not, of course, the only species to create music. Whales, birds, and nonhuman primates make vocalizations to each other that employ structured variations in pitch, tone, rhythm, and melody. Darwin was the first to suggest that music evolved in humans and in these other animal species as an aid to courtship. He pointed to the unusually large difference in the frequency range of human male and female voices, much larger than can be accounted for by body size alone, as one possible sign of physiological adaptation in the direction of greater singing ability for women: "[M]usical tones and rhythms were used by our half-human ancestors, during the season of courtship, when animals of all kinds are excited not only by love, but by the strong passions of jealousy, rivalry, and triumph…. Women are generally thought to possess sweeter voices than men, and as far as this serves as any guide we may infer that they first acquired musical powers in order to attract the other sex."40 Darwin's general idea about music and mate selection certainly accords with the prominence of music in human courtship rituals, and it conforms with a cardinal principle of evolutionary psychology (EP) reasoning: Anything that improves an individual's ability to attract a better sexual partner is sure to be favored by evolutionary selection pressures. By this standard, musical ability has the definite markings of an evolutionary adaptation.

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