The Origins of Musicality

Open Access
Authors
  • H. Honing ORCID logo
  • W. Tecumseh Fitch
  • Marisa Hoeschele
  • Hugo Merchant
Publication date 09-12-2025
Journal Science
Volume | Issue number 390 | 6776
Number of pages 1
Organisations
  • Interfacultary Research - Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC)
Abstract Ghazanfar and Steingo open their Perspective by asserting that, because no fossil or archaeological record of early music-making exists, modern researchers “rely as much on conjecture as they did in Darwin and Spencer’s time.” This characterization is inaccurate. The evolution of musicality can be reconstructed using methods from comparative biology, genetics, and cross-cultural analyses, empirical domains that were unavailable to Darwin and Spencer.
Document type Comment/Letter to the editor
Note Comment (eLetter) to: A.A. Ghazanfar, G. Steingo (2025)Groove to the music : What can tapping macaques reveal about the evolution of musicality? in Science, v. 390, iss. 6776, pp. 884-885.
Language English
Published at https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aec8640
Published at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec8640#elettersSection https://musiccognition.blogspot.com/2026/01/no-progress-since-darwin-and-spencers.html
Downloads
Honing et al. (2025) Science eLetter (Final published version)
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