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sapinker's profile
Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Verified account
@sapinker

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Steven PinkerVerified account

@sapinker

Cognitive scientist at Harvard.

Boston, MA
pinker.wjh.harvard.edu
Joined January 2010

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    Steven Pinker‏Verified account @sapinker Jan 29

    Almost everyone, that is: ethnomusicologists, who believe we are Blank Slates, falsely guessed that no one could tell a lullaby from a dance song from other cultures. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/01/music-may-transcend-cultural-boundaries-to-become-universally-human/ … via @Harvard

    6:57 AM - 29 Jan 2018
    • 112 Retweets
    • 305 Likes
    • 🇫🇮 Ajattelijat 🇫🇮 DR.TANVIR AHMED,Ph•D Duh Shan Jon Gurutz Arranz Izquierdo Paul Nehlen David Lashin Antiutopia Jared Jones Flávio S J de Souza
    25 replies 112 retweets 305 likes
      1. Dr. Mike Shapanis BTEC‏ @MikeShapanis Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        fUCKING ethnomusicologists, amirite?

        0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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      1. Chris Finnigan‏ @ChrisFinnigan Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        I look forward to testing this theory by cooing my future child to sleep with Darude-Sandstorm

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. paperwithoutdrink‏ @pprwithoutdrink Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        Thank you for standing up for the truth about the Far Left pushing people to the Right. When you can no longer state facts without being called any number of terrible things, there is a big problem.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. Michael Saunby‏ @msaunby Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        I wonder if it's also possible to tell slippers from boots in other cultures?

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. Michael‏ @profplum99 Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        It takes YEARS of study to develop an expert opinion on the stupidity of others...

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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      1. New conversation
      2. The Logos of Post-Irony‏ @jbthazard Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        I had a professor (English, though she sang and played piano) who not only believed that gender was a social construct, but that musical interpretation from an emotional standpoint was also largely based on nurture rather that nature.

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      3. The Logos of Post-Irony‏ @jbthazard Jan 29
        Replying to @jbthazard @sapinker @Harvard

        To be specific, she thought that minor scales made people sad not because of inherent properties but because we are "conditioned" to have that response. The "blank slate" theory truly knows little bounds.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      4. End of conversation
      1. Sydney Pullen‏ @SydPull Feb 7
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        No ethnomusicologist worth their salt would actually suggest such a thing. But I imagine that this doesn't match your dogmatic ideas about social sciences and therefore can't be true.

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      1. Kate Pukinskis‏ @kate_pukinskis Jan 31
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        1. Which ethnomusicologists were asked and what was the question? 2. Did you read the article? “everyone”* = those that have regular and consistent access to the internet and speak English at more than a conversational level. *The sample was seriously skewed.

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      1. ahmed t ince‏ @_ati_Ntr Jan 30
        Replying to @sapinker @HarvardResearch @Harvard

        I'm in already..

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      1. Ed Gucker  🇺🇸‏ @ed_gucker Jan 30
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        Songs do evoke different moods.

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      1. New conversation
      2. million‏ @millllllllllll5 Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        People at Harvard ; does salt taste like salt in other cultures as well?

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      3. Makoghouled the Spooky‏ @Makofueled Jan 29
        Replying to @millllllllllll5 @sapinker @Harvard

        Don't compared Sicilian salt to that rockgrind you eat over there.

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      4. End of conversation
      1. SoulMaite‏ @MaiteP65 Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        2 out of 4

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      1. Neonomide‏ @Neonomide Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        There are ethnomusicological studies on anatomy of hit songs, though

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      1. Matthias Röder‏ @matthiasroder Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        Reminds me of the discussion we had in Munich #DLD ;-)

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      1. Pete Smillie‏ @mequantum Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        Mindless.

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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      1. B.J.Boogie‏ @bjboogie02 Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        time to pull out your copies of Leonard Bernstein's "The Unanswered Question" ... his Norton lectures at Harvard drawing analogies between our innate appreciation of tonal music and Chomsky's generative linguistics,

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      1. David‏ @Frankie_Fuzz Jan 29
        Replying to @sapinker @Harvard

        I’m not sure how the results of this study preclude the possibility that we are blank slates. Couldn’t people just be looking for similarities to the song types of their own culture? It doesn’t seem necessary to assume there is a genetic basis for song categorization.

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