“rave”gene that makes them dance every night,doing their group-
bonding thing,enjoying their group-competitive advantages over other
less musical groups.Perhaps a “wallflower”mutation emerges among
these people of the rave that predisposes its possessors to rest while their
comrades dance.Because the wallflower mutant does not pay the enor-
mous time and energy costs of dancing all night,but still enjoys the
advantages its group has over other groups,it inevitably spreads through
the people of the rave.Within a few generations,music would go away,
and we would back to a population of well-rested wallflowers.If musical
behavior has no individual-level advantage but does have individual
costs,it would be difficult for group selection to have an effect on the
evolution of music.The same holds true for any other “altruistic”trait
that has individual costs and only group benefits.No biologist ever made
a good case for such an altruistic trait evolving in any vertebrate species,
so it is not the kind of explanation one would wish to invoke for human
music.(It should go without saying that anthropological claims that some
tribes have “no concept of the separate individual”have no bearing
whatsoever on the scientific status of group selection versus selfish gene
theory in human evolution.Animals do not have to know they are indi-
viduals for selection to act on them as such.)
On the other hand,we must not be dogmatic about group selection
always being an unworkable or outdated idea. If music did have
individual-level benefits,such as courtship benefits under sexual selec-
tion,it may be possible for group selection to reinforce them with group
benefits.Under this model of group selection,no tension would be nec-
essary between individual and group levels of selection:music would not
be altruistic,with individual costs and only group benefits.If none of the
ravers was willing to mate with a wallflower,the wallflower gene could
never invade the group.This type of group selection model has been very
poorly studied in theoretical biology,but it is not implausible (see Boyd
and Richerson 1990).I think this sort of interplay between sexual selec-
tion and group selection may be the only sensible way to introduce group
selection into models of music evolution.
Another overlooked factor is kin selection,which is easy to mistake
for group selection when groups are composed largely of genetic rela-
tives.However,to posit that music evolved under kin selection,for
some kind of kin-bonding function,seems implausible,because no other
species with cooperation between kin requires a special bonding ritual.
Nor do music and dance seem to play the major role in family groups
that they play when nonkin come together.
The main appeal of the group-bonding theory is,I think,our subjec-
tive experience that music feels better when others are around enjoying
it too.The production of this warm groupish glow,delight,or euphoria352 Geoffrey Miller