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Music That Makes You Dumb


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WOW!..lol

well i guess that depends who you are asking. Could be a very different outcome.

Maybe I'm just an exception, but if I was going by this chart, my SAT score should've been 600-800 points lower than it was.

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OK...my educator's two-cents worth...

First, one of the strongest messages my research professor in graduate school constantly reminded us of was this...research can only establish correlations -- however, it can never establish causality.

With this idea in mind...music cannot, in and of itself, make you "dumb"...nor make you "smart." Music educators (hell, the entire field altogether...or at least, MOST...and yes, that is intentionally said to demarkate myself from other members of the field) love to point out that such things as "research has shown that students who study music for X amount of years score X number of points higher on SAT, ACT, and all other standardized test scores." Once they claim that, then they smugly make the correlation of "therefore, the study of music will lead to your child ultimately scoring higher on these tests."

All to which, I say...HOGWASH!!!

Kids who take performance-related music activities eventually score higher on the various standardized tests simply because the "lower-achieving" kids are weeded from the activity long before the academic years in which these tests are given. The 5th grade kid who won't do his math homework...who won't do his science homework...who won't even bother to take a single book home to do ANY homework...sure as hell isn't going to sit down and practice his horn for the requisite 20-30 minutes. And as a result, that kid isn't going to last in the (most) music programs. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Listening to Beethoven doesn't make one smarter. Not one iota. Any difference is because those who have no intellectual, interpersonal, or intrinsically-musical bearing will not choose to listen to Beethoven. It might "bore' them. It isn't "exciting enough" for them. For those individuals, it is far more meaningful, and far more relative, to listen to the latest rap-fest which is filled with "$#&^* YOU!!! (da-da-da-da-daht)...&%#%$#$ YOU!!! (da-da-da-da-daht);..kiss my *&%$XC and &$%$#@X YOU!!!! (da-da-da-da-daht).

No...the musical kids who score higher do so because they are the kids who are the higher achievers from the start. NOT simply because the study of music made them that way.

Edited by HornTeacher
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I am amused: there is a single "classical" composer, Beethoven, listed, and he is a statistical outlier on the far right X axis. But there is also a category called "classical", which ends up on the far left. What is up with that?

For me, the real question is, which classical composers make you dumb. My bet is on Tchaikovsky and Wagner.

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Whatever...

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OK...my educator's two-cents worth...

First, one of the strongest messages my research professor in graduate school constantly reminded us of was this...research can only establish correlations -- however, it can never establish causality.

With this idea in mind...music cannot, in and of itself, make you "dumb"...nor make you "smart." Music educators (hell, the entire field altogether...or at least, MOST...and yes, that is intentionally said to demarkate myself from other members of the field) love to point out that such things as "research has shown that students who study music for X amount of years score X number of points higher on SAT, ACT, and all other standardized test scores." Once they claim that, then they smugly make the correlation of "therefore, the study of music will lead to your child ultimately scoring higher on these tests."

All to which, I say...HOGWASH!!!

Kids who take performance-related music activities eventually score higher on the various standardized tests simply because the "lower-achieving" kids are weeded from the activity long before the academic years in which these tests are given. The 5th grade kid who won't do his math homework...who won't do his science homework...who won't even bother to take a single book home to do ANY homework...sure as hell isn't going to sit down and practice his horn for the requisite 20-30 minutes. And as a result, that kid isn't going to last in the (most) music programs. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Listening to Beethoven doesn't make one smarter. Not one iota. Any difference is because those who have no intellectual, interpersonal, or intrinsically-musical bearing will not choose to listen to Beethoven. It might "bore' them. It isn't "exciting enough" for them. For those individuals, it is far more meaningful, and far more relative, to listen to the latest rap-fest which is filled with "$#&^* YOU!!! (da-da-da-da-daht)...&%#%$#$ YOU!!! (da-da-da-da-daht);..kiss my *&%$XC and &$%$#@X YOU!!!! (da-da-da-da-daht).

No...the musical kids who score higher do so because they are the kids who are the higher achievers from the start. NOT simply because the study of music made them that way.

Totally agree with you.

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HornTeacher -- if "research can only establish correlations -- however, it can never establish causality" is true, then how can you so confidently refute that there is a causal relationship between 2 variables which correlate with one another?

"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

Wouldn't the most logical (in fact, the only logical) position be that of uncertainty? In this case, musical taste (or ability to musically perform) might cause, or be caused by, heightened intelligence. Or, these 2 variables correlate with one another due to a 3rd variable (like family upbringing, or genetics, or socioeconomics, or exposure to a certain gut bacteria, or alignment of the stars, or......). But again, absence of proof of causality between musical taste and intelligence is not proof that this causal relationship does not exist.

Your argument shifts from logical to speculative about "weeding out"; not altogether different from the speculation of the initial claim that certain music can make a person dumber.

Edited by Malaguena Salerosa
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