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Evo psycho watch: Music actually raises questions?

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Gil Dodgen, who is a concert pianist (as well as a present, former, and possibly late hang glider), offered some useful thoughts on this pop sci amusement by Drake Bennett in the Boston Globe on the alleged origin of music.

The evolutionary benefits of our affinity for food (nutrition) and sex (procreation) are easy enough to explain, but music is trickier. It has become one of the great puzzles in the field of evolutionary psychology, a controversial discipline dedicated to determining the adaptive roots of aspects of modern behavior, from child-rearing to religion.

One thing I want to draw attention to is that this story actually backs away from uncritical acceptance of the claims of evolutionary psychology.

Yes. Evo psycho is described above as “a controversial discipline”, rather than as “the latest in scientific understanding of our origins.” Hmmmm. (Well, of course, evo psycho should be described as a controversial discipline at best, but whodathunk that the pop sci media would get around to considering the possibility that it is?

The main problem with evo psycho is that its subject, like that of exobiology , has never been observed. Its subject is early humans but we only know modern humans. (Simply living under primitive conditions is not pixie dust and will not turn a modern human into a Pleistocene caveman; it would merely demonstrate that no evolution took place.)

Better still, an actual skeptic was interviewed for the Boston Globe story. That’s not usual, so let’s enjoy it:

To Steven Pinker, though, none of this adds up to a convincing case for music’s evolutionary purpose. Pinker is not shy about seeing the traces of evolution in modern man-in How the Mind Works, he devoted a chapter to arguing that emotions were adaptations-but he stands by his “auditory cheesecake” description.

“They’re completely bogus explanations, because they assume what they set out to prove: that hearing plinking sounds brings the group together, or that music relieves tension,” he says. “But they don’t explain why. They assume as big a mystery as they solve.” Music may well be innate, he argues, but that could just as easily mean it evolved as a useless byproduct of language, which he sees as an actual adaptation.

Note that the choices materialism offers here are

(1) music is useful for food, sex, or murder, or

(2) music is a useless distraction.

Take that, Chopin. We always knews youse was a wimp.

The third option is that music is part of the spiritual nature of the human – and therefore neither useful nor useless in the senses above, but is a road to becoming a fully developed human being. But how could a typical pop sci article dare interview anyone who made such an obvious point?

(Note re plinking sounds: Once, long ago, I was a deputy warden at an Anglican church. Anyone who thinks that “hearing plinking sounds brings the group together” can have my old stint in a heartbeat. Pack plenty of Tylenol and remember that when old ladies demurely ask, “One lump or two, sweetheart?,” they are trying to determine how many times they should attempt to break a potful of boiling tea over your head because you backed a different faction on worship music. I somehow do not think that this is a new problem in human history.)

Comments
Thanks, Denyse. I look forward to seeing your book.David vun Kannon
September 13, 2006
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From Denyse: If all a person wants to know is whether a given cultural development (music, mathematics, literature) either leads to food, sex,and murder or is an accidental outcropping of behaviors that do lead to same, the answer is, usually, neither - or not certainly enough to explain them. As the forthcoming book, The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007), of which I am co-author, will demonstrate, there are a number of testable hypotheses in the area of human mind and spirituality, and they are actually being tested now, wherever scientists can get facilities that are not governed by the enforcers of materialism, whose creation story is Darwinism.O'Leary
September 12, 2006
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Jehu - Denyse's link to the Perennial Philosophy page in this sentence: The third option is that music is part of the spiritual nature of the human - and therefore neither useful nor useless in the senses above, but is a road to becoming a fully developed human being. "music is a road" and "part of the spiritual nature of the human" don't seem to lead to any testable hypothoses. I'm just trying to confirm with Denyse if she feels that there are or aren't testable hypothoses about music and its universality. Does she think these guys aren't asking the right questions, or does she think that there are no questions of this form worth asking?David vun Kannon
September 12, 2006
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David vun Kanno "Is your position then that music and its universality in human culture is not a fit subject for scientific examination?" Why would that be her position? O'Leary's article doesn't even hint that. Unless you think the only way to study the universality of music in human culture is to begin with the a priori assumption that it evolved through random chance and natural selection?Jehu
September 12, 2006
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Is your position then that music and its universality in human culture is not a fit subject for scientific examination? Not that the speculations quoted in the article are particularly scientific,ie testable in practice. The only real window I know of into the nature/nurture of universals is the study of feral children and children deprived of social contact by sick parents. Thank God, the number of these is too low for a scientific study.David vun Kannon
September 12, 2006
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Denyse, you were a "deputy warden." Wow, you are a woman of greater parts than I suspected. Did you see that some of the inmates of your institution are trying to bolt? See Jordan Hylden's 9/11/06 report here: http://www.firstthings.com.BarryA
September 12, 2006
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Do these evolutionary psychologists ever take into account population genetics? They seem to completely ignore the selective pressure needed to cause a trait to be fixed. It is hard to imagine how any of the finely tuned psychological behaviors exhibited by humans, that Darwinists attribute to evolution, ever could have produced enough selective benefit to become fixed in the population.Jehu
September 12, 2006
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