Language, Music, and Gary Marcus

Gary Marcus’s talk about language and music from an evolutionary perspective was very interesting. He began by considering the notion that these two things evolved for many of the same purposes: a “social glue,” and way to attract mates.

Language obviously helps us communicate, but Marcus points out that its evolution is a bit of a kluge (a clumsy or inelegant—yet surprisingly effective—solution to a problem). This is clearly demonstrated in what are known as “garden-path” sentences, such as “the horse raced past the barn fell.” Reading this, you probably stumbled upon reaching the word “fell,” at which point you had to backtrack to try to find other possible ways to read the sentence. Language is not a perfect system.

When discussing why music evolved, Marcus mentioned sexual selection. In birds and other animals, males use songs to entice females: the better the male’s song, the more offspring they had, raising their reproductive success, favoring music. For the human equivalent, Marcus cites the “Jimi Hendrix theory.” Hendrix could play great music and had fathered many children while on the road; his musical talent raised his reproductive success, and thus music was selected for. However, Marcus points out that this theory implies that musical ability should have only involved in men, but we know that this is not true—there are many great female musicians, some of which are even better than some men.

Marcus’s then explained that the reason for the way language and music (and everything else) evolved “imperfectly” is because it is not “survival of the fittest” in the sense that the most advantageous, “perfect” trait was selected for; rather, nature selected the fittest out of the options that currently exist without forethought. Things evolve via “evolutionary inertia:” once moving in particular direction, an evolutionary system tends to continue to evolve in that direction, maybe making minor changes along the way.

All in all, Gary Marcus’s talk was very thought provoking and it was a pleasure to hear him speak.