Singing can be as simple as a bedtime lullaby, or as grand as a national anthem. Our range of songs extends to include love songs and ballads recounting deeds of heroism. Celebratory songs, such as “Happy Birthday,” or carols for Christmas, or songs for fun are all part of our collective memories. Singing reaches far above the natural realm in songs and hymns sung to God.
Since singing and the attention we devote to it extend across time and cultures, it is worthwhile to take note and ask whether this deep-rooted human behavior is more consistent with a naturalistic theory of human origins or with the intelligent design of humans. First, let’s make a brief examination of the physiological requirements for the human voice to produce the expressive range of tones and frequencies associated with singing.
Howard Glicksman and Steve Laufmann, in Your Designed Body, explain the multifaceted nature of the pharynx.
The pharynx affords us the dual abilities to breathe and swallow food and water, but it does much more. It affords the ability for speech, language, and tonal activities like lyrical speech and singing.
Many additional anatomical specializations contribute to our ability to sing.
Most people don’t really take any time to consider the interesting work that goes on in the body when they sing. They seem to assume that the voice just magically “appears” whenever they will it to….Sound is generated in the larynx — an organ in the neck involved in the protection of the trachea and in sound production. The larynx houses the vocal folds….The larynx is also where pitch and volume are manipulated. The strength of expiration from the lungs contributes to loudness, and is necessary for the vocal folds to produce speech.
The complexity of being able to sing harmonizes with foresight and design and is severely out of tune with an undirected adaptation for survival.
Vocal folds vibrate more slowly when they’re shorter, thicker, and floppier….It sounds pretty simple, but it’s usually more complex than that. The cricothyroid muscle and thyroarytenoid muscle coordinate with each other to create different pitches [an example of a push-pull mechanism]. They can also coordinate differently to produce the same pitch with a different sound quality. The amount of airflow from the lungs also impacts the pitch. In addition, the other muscles in the larynx can affect pitch and loudness adjustments in very complex ways.
Our Identity as Humans
Our fascination with singing and how enamored we can become with hearing quality vocalists reveals something significant about our identity as humans. In connection with our ability not just to make a “singing sound,” but also to stir the deepest emotions in those who listen, we exhibit attributes far beyond any supposed evolutionary adaptation. Humans appear to have an innate love for music and song. One could say that our native land seems not to be an incoherent wilderness, but a paradise of music, voice, and song.
A neuroscientist states concerning humans and song:
It shows us that there may be really something that is universal to all humans that cannot simply be explained by culture…
From Grunts to Greatness
Singing and the human experience lend evidence to the intelligent design of humans as possessing qualities that are unique to us and elevated far beyond mere vocal adaptations from a putative animalistic past. For those committed to an evolutionary worldview, the explanations they offer to explain human singing fall flat to the discerning ear. Like someone who has his cloak caught in the buggy harness, they are forced to stumble along in the tracks of the evolutionary wagon train, theorizing that animal noises eventually gave rise to Pavarotti.
…music’s emotional impact may have deeper evolutionary roots than we realize, which could shed light on its profound effect on humans….
Concerning the rationale for why animals might vocalize in song, Brian Farrell, a professor of biology at Harvard University, asks,
But why do singing animals sing, rather than bark, bleat or buzz? In addition to competing for territory, mates and food, animals that inhabit the same acoustic space effectively have to “compete for bandwidth” to get heard, Farrell said. Singing, it turns out, has the advantages of transmitting over long distances and being able to carry lots of information in its lengthy sequences. That’s useful when you’re using it to demarcate territory, alert others to predators or woo a mate with impressive vocal feats, like free-tailed bats do.
One could imagine that animal “singing” might well serve some or all of the purposes mentioned above, but try to suggest that humans’ love of singing likewise stems from such brutish motivations, and I believe that most singers would laugh out loud or be profoundly offended.
A writer for Smithsonian Magazine continues to try to track the evolutionary roots for music and song:
The human voice is perhaps the oldest and most diverse musical instrument we know, capable of both speech and song. But the question of why people make music has intrigued and puzzled scientists for centuries. Is the art form simply an invention, like writing, produced so we can better express ourselves? Did acoustics arise so we could attract mates? Or ward off danger? Is there something deeply evolutionary about music inherent in each of us?…The study doesn’t provide a definitive answer for why humans sing, but the researchers’ leading hypothesis is that music promotes social bonding.
Espousing such a hypothesis is an attempt to provide a plausible argument for the evolutionary paradigm. However, it is not a statement of any scientific worth, since it lacks any exclusive connection between the assumption (evolution) and the outcome (singing). One could just as easily say: “God gave humans the gift of singing to help promote social bonding.”
Another “Just So” Story
Another researcher pondering why humans sing also offers a “just so” Darwinian explanation:
There is something distinctive about song all around the world as an acoustic signal that perhaps our brains have become attuned to over evolutionary time.
The same foggy evolutionary thinking dampens the value of this statement. One could alternatively conclude that the distinctiveness of vocal acoustics is easily explained as deriving from a designer’s plan.
Not only the ability to sing, but our predilection for enjoying singing, stand out as significant human traits that find rare and limited comparisons in the animal world. The evolutionary model fails to offer a satisfactory mechanism for the origination of the complex physiological, mental, and sensory faculties required for humans to enjoy the gift of singing.