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1.5.1Human Evolution: Natural Selection and Adaptations, Including Music
Darwin came under fierce attack for pointing out (correctly, it turns out) that humankind is merely one of millions of species that evolved from earlier life forms. Moreover, nothing creative or directional goes on in evolution. No ultimate goal exists in the evolution of any species. Homo sapiens does not represent the culmination of anything and is not evolving towards anything.
It’s an interesting paradox that humans, with dazzling cognition and insight about everything from Einsteinian relativity to genetics to artistic expression, are clearly unlike any other species on the planet—and yet humans evolved by exactly the same processes as all other species on the planet and carry the same genes as the humblest of them.
Darwinian evolution causes the emergence of adaptations such as bipedalism, music, and language in two ways: natural selection and sexual selection.
1. How Natural Selection WorksAll living things compete to survive and pass on their genes. In a given species, each individual differs slightly from all the other individuals. Therefore, in the prevailing environmental conditions, the ability to survive and procreate varies from individual to individual. This variability means some individuals thrive better than others under the same environmental conditions. Those that do best—the winners in the evolutionary struggle for resources and opportunities to reproduce—are thus “naturally selected” to pass on their genes to the next generation. Those individuals that do not fare well in the same environment do not pass on their genes.