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Darwin Tunes
Dear colleagues,
This project may interest some of you.
(I just got this note from a colleague,
and am not affiliated with the project).
Regards,
Ani Patel
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: DarwinTunes launch
From: "Leroi, Armand M" <a.leroi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, November 21, 2009 8:58 am
To: "Leroi, Armand M" <a.leroi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Colleagues,
On Monday 23.11.09 we're launching an experiment concerned with the
evolution of music. We call it DarwinTunes. It's partly a public
experiment, so we'd be grateful if you'd distribute the news by any means
possible. But if you find it really interesting and want to be involved -
get in touch.
best
Armand
darwintunes.org - a test-tube for cultural evolution.
<http://darwintunes.org>
In the week that we mark 150 years since Darwin's "On the Origin of
Species", students at Imperial College London and members of the public
will be taking part in a unique experiment to answer the question "Does
culture evolve by natural selection?"
Evolution has produced an astonishing variety of living things - plants,
animals, bacteria, viruses - every species being remarkable in some way,
for example the peacock's tail display or the trapdoor spider's cunning
trap. In recent years, it has been suggested (by Richard Dawkins among
others) that cultural phenomena evolve by similar mechanisms. Indeed, it
seems reasonable to suggest that songs, stories, jokes and other cultural
forms are passed, imperfectly, from person to person, the more appealing
versions get picked up and spread by more people, and so on. It's a kind
of Darwinian Chinese whispers, if you like. However plausible this may
seem, the hypothesis has never been tested and we know very little about
the underlying evolutionary mechanisms. The DarwinTunes experiment will
help us explore the origins of the cultural world.
We have developed a computer algorithm that creates, breeds and mutates
short pieces of music. In this system, good music has more chances to
breed than bad music, thus providing the conditions for evolution by a
natural selection-like process. However, computers can't yet distinguish
good music from bad, so we have to use human ears and brains for this
task. We gather that human input through the DarwinTunes website.
>From Monday 23 to Friday 27 November 2009, over 100 first year biology
students at Imperial College will each spend 10 minutes per day rating
music for DarwinTunes. We hope that members of the public will also
contribute on a special public "channel". This public channel will run
beyond the 27th and could provide the most impressive results of all if a
few thousand people participate for a few minutes per day. There's a
YouTube video to show you what to do, but it's very simple.
At the end of the experiment, we hope to have a population of music that
is far more "musical" than the starting population which was founded by
two random pieces of music. We will then be able to study the
evolutionary dynamics and determine the key aesthetic qualities which
drive musical evolution. And finally, are human composers strictly
necessary? We may be able to answer that provocative question too.
For further background and details of the experiment, please see
http://darwintunes.org/welcome
Please contact Bob MacCallum or Armand Leroi for further information
(contact info and bio's at http://darwintunes.org/who-are-we)
Title: DarwinTunes launch
Dear Colleagues,
On Monday 23.11.09 we’re launching an experiment concerned with the evolution of music. We call it DarwinTunes. It’s partly a public experiment, so we’d be grateful if you’d distribute the news by any means possible. But if you find it really interesting and want to be involved — get in touch.
best
Armand
darwintunes.org - a test-tube for cultural evolution.
<http://darwintunes.org>
In the week that we mark 150 years since Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", students at Imperial College London and members of the public will be taking part in a unique experiment to answer the question "Does culture evolve by natural selection?"
Evolution has produced an astonishing variety of living things - plants, animals, bacteria, viruses - every species being remarkable in some way, for example the peacock's tail display or the trapdoor spider's cunning trap. In recent years, it has been suggested (by Richard Dawkins among others) that cultural phenomena evolve by similar mechanisms. Indeed, it seems reasonable to suggest that songs, stories, jokes and other cultural forms are passed, imperfectly, from person to person, the more appealing versions get picked up and spread by more people, and so on. It's a kind of Darwinian Chinese whispers, if you like. However plausible this may seem, the hypothesis has never been tested and we know very little about the underlying evolutionary mechanisms. The DarwinTunes experiment will help us explore the origins of the cultural world.
We have developed a computer algorithm that creates, breeds and mutates short pieces of music. In this system, good music has more chances to breed than bad music, thus providing the conditions for evolution by a natural selection-like process. However, computers can't yet distinguish good music from bad, so we have to use human ears and brains for this task. We gather that human input through the DarwinTunes website.
>From Monday 23 to Friday 27 November 2009, over 100 first year biology students at Imperial College will each spend 10 minutes per day rating music for DarwinTunes. We hope that members of the public will also contribute on a special public "channel". This public channel will run beyond the 27th and could provide the most impressive results of all if a few thousand people participate for a few minutes per day. There's a YouTube video to show you what to do, but it's very simple.
At the end of the experiment, we hope to have a population of music that is far more "musical" than the starting population which was founded by two random pieces of music. We will then be able to study the evolutionary dynamics and determine the key aesthetic qualities which drive musical evolution. And finally, are human composers strictly necessary? We may be able to answer that provocative question too.
For further background and details of the experiment, please see http://darwintunes.org/welcome
Please contact Bob MacCallum or Armand Leroi for further information (contact info and bio's at http://darwintunes.org/who-are-we)