Survival of the funkiest: does culture adhere to Darwinian law?

DarwinTunes, a gamelike experiment in which participants choose tunes to 'mate' together, is an evolutionary corrective to the oh-so-mystical view of art

There were some funky beats at Imperial College London on Saturday at its annual science festival. As well as opportunities to create bogeys, see robots dance and try to get physics PhD students to explain their wacky world, this fascinating event included the chance to participate in a public game-like experiment called DarwinTunes.

Participants select tunes and "mate" them with other tunes to create musical offspring: if the offspring are in turn selected by other players, they "survive" and get the chance to reproduce their musical DNA. The experiment is online you too can try to immortalise your selfish musical genes.

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