Did you do the thing scientists / researchers do when critiquing a piece? Look to the sources, read them, see if the inferences drawn are valid?
Yup, a few cherry picked articles strung together like always. I could probably do the same as a hack for the Daily Mail and pin cancer on immigration.
James Woodburn seems to be quoted a lot in Marxist Magazines, Frank Marlowe seems to be a part of group called “Radical Anthropology” – on their website they describe one workshop as “Ingrid Lewis has spent many years with the Bayaka forest hunter-gatherers of the Congo Basin. In this emotionally powerful practical workshop, she will reveal what she has learned from these people about how to manage social conflict, create harmony and ensure mental and physical well-being, all through polyphonic singing. Everyone can do this. Previous singing experience not required! ” :D
But to digress away from tongue in cheek character assassination, the field seems to be a little to full of people making big claims based on qualitative field work (hanging out with the odd tribe or two) with very little hard data to back their assumptions up. It doesn’t surprise me either, I used to on occasion – hang out with a lot of history students in Oxford. If they weren’t out of their **** minds on weed they were singing folk music and strumming god damn mandolins – anything about statistics or data would make their eyes glaze over.
I found myself surprised that a scientific news source is willing to print such sotheadedness.