Cody Delistraty examines new evidence that musical talent may be a sexually selected trait:
For over 140 years, research had not been able to verify Darwin’s theory, that is until a recent study conducted by Benjamin D. Charlton confirmed that indeed, “music is a product of sexual selection through mate choice.”
But the findings come with some nuance. Charlton and his fellow researchers at the University of Sussex found that women in the middle of their menstrual cycle – at their most fertile – tended to believe men with strong musical abilities carried better genes than men without that skill and thus preferred them as mates. For the study, 1,465 women listened to four different piano compositions of increasing levels of complexity and were asked which composer they desired most. Women who were not at a point of peak conception were generally ambivalent, not preferring a single composer over another, but those who were on days six through 14 of their respective reproductive cycles overwhelmingly preferred the composer of the most complex song.
The Dish 