Klarinet Archive - Posting 000623.txt from 2000/05

From: "Diane Karius, Ph.D." <dikarius@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] an interesting article
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 18:15:12 -0400

While going through the electronic references today, I came
across an article that might be interesting in light of our recent
discussion on gender and music (most specifically, boys being
discouraged from playing clarinet because it is "not manly".

The paper is entitled "Second to fourth digit ratio in elite
musicians: Evidence for musical ability as an honest signal of male
fitness" by Sluming,V.A. and Manning,J.T.; and appeared in
Evol.Hum.Behav. 21(1):1-9 (2000 Jan). I don't have the paper yet
(I've requested a reprint), but the abstract provides some food for
thought (even if I'm not sure I buy their conclusions yet).

The study looked at the ratio between the length of the second
and fourth fingers in musicians from "a British symphony orchestra".
a low ratio indicates that the fourth finger is longer than the
second finger, 1 indicates that they are the same length. The ratio
between these two fingers is apparently set in utero by exposure to
testosterone (at least in part) - the more testosterone there is,
the lower the ratio between those two fingers. Their hypothesis was
that prenatal testosterone exposure may "facilitate musical ability".

They found that the male musicians of the orchestra did in fact
have a lower ratio between those two fingers than the average male
(indicating, presumeably, more testosterone exposure in utero).
Interestingly, the women in the orchestra did not differ from the
average in non-musician women. They also compared within the
orchestra and found that (and I'm not sure how they did
this) the greater the musical ability (standing in section?) the
lower the ratio. The conclusion in the abstract is "This preliminary
study supports the thesis that music is a sexually selected trait in
men that indicates fertilizing capacity and perhaps good genes."

They do hedge this with: "However, the association between low
2D:4D ratio and orchestra membership and high status within the
orchestra may result from testosterone-mediated competitive ability.
Further tests of the association between 2D:4D and musical ability
per se are necessary."

Like I said, I want to read the whole article before I decide
what I think of this, but it provides interesting food for thought,
in light of our conversation about boys staying away from clarinet
because it is not "manly". (nothing in this that I can see speaks to
an apparent difference between the genders).

Diane R. Karius, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology
University of Health Sciences
1750 Independence Ave.
Kansas City, MO 641o6-1453
email: dikarius@-----.EDU
http://uhsweb.edu/physio

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