Some birds sing just like the music that comes out of a flute, a cornet or an organ—played by human musicians.
This was the finding of an international team of researchers who made a thorough analysis of bird songs, the Christian News reported.
They said many of the birds exhibit strikingly human-like musical principles in their songs—a revelation that challenges the logic of those who espouse the evolution theory.
In the past, the idea that birds can sing using complex musical principles was dismissed as preposterous.
Not anymore.
"Since pied butcherbird songs share so many commonalities with human music, this species could possibly revolutionise the way we think about the core values of music," said violinist and biomusicologist Hollis Taylor of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
The study "poses a big problem for the evolutionary model of human origins" for several reasons, according to Dr. Jeffrey Tomkins, director of Life Sciences at the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) in Dallas, Texas.
One of the reasons is that "rhythm and synchronous ability do not provide any apparent selectable advantage for survival," Tomkins wrote in an online article.
Another reason is that "the only other types of creatures with this unique ability are certain species of birds and, in one documented case, an elephant—creatures not directly related to humans on the evolutionary tree," he said.
Moreover, the fact that songbirds show "incredibly complex and human-like" musical abilities makes no sense in the evolutionary plane, Tomkins said.
"If evolution were true, one would expect that such behavioural complexity found in humans, developed gradually over millions of years, would be found at a reduced level in humanity's supposed closest ancestors—the great apes," he said. But this is not the case.
"Surely such a complex trait ... would not be present in any other organisms lower on the so-called evolutionary tree of life, especially those with such small brains as birds," he continued.
The "unimaginable engineered complexity" shown by the music produced by songbirds "utterly defies evolutionary predictions and points directly to God's omnipotent creative powers," he added.
