Re: [asa] Music and Evolution

Part of the difficulty in identifying the origin of music is defining
exactly what it is and is not. I tend to be reluctant to designate
most of
what would be on popular radio stations as music, for example. More
seriously, there is the question of whether the experimental
activities of,
e.g., John Cage, are necessarily music.

As a whole, music is perhaps distinguished as much by the attitude of
the
listener as by its substance. Assessing that for animlas is unlikely
to be
feasible.

More serious consideration might note that music indeed often
functions for
impressing the opposite sex or defining and coordinating a group.
Thus, it
is not so far fetched to assume that humans may have developed music
in part
for those functions, regardless of one's view on the origin of humans.
Colson seems too preoccupied with evolution-bashing to think
carefully, just
as Pinker seems overly quick to reject competing ideas. For example,
the
hard-wiring (if it is truly hard-wiring and not a product of
environmental
exposures to various sounds) might be merely a byproduct of language
abilities, but this byproduct was discovered and put to use for various
social purposes.

In addition to Colson apparently accepting or rejecting ideas based on
whether he likes them rather than assessment of scientific merit, and
regarding the Boston Globe as an authoritative source on the state of
scientific ideas, his equation of evolution with atheism is a serious
problem.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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