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Making music: Let's not be too quick to abandon the byproduct hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Steve Stewart-Williams Open the ORCID record for Steve Stewart-Williams [Opens in a new window]
Steve Stewart-Williams*
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Jalan Broga, 43500Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. [email protected]; http://www.stevestewartwilliams.com/
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Abstract

It is premature to conclude that music is an adaptation. Given the danger of overextending the adaptationist mode of explanation, the default position should be the byproduct hypothesis, and it should take very strong evidence to drag us into the adaptationist camp. As yet, the evidence isn't strong enough – and the proposed adaptationist explanations have a number of unresolved difficulties.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 44 , 2021 , e113
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

Miles, S. A., Miranda, R. A., & Ullman, M. T. (2016). Sex differences in music: A female advantage at recognizing familiar melodies. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 278–278. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed