Facts are all very fine. But there’s no need to always get into a tizzy when they don’t add up. Take the ‘facts’ gleaned from an old study still doing the rounds. Originating in a 2011 article published in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo, researchers at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro apparently found that when healthy and cancerous cell cultures in Petri dishes at 37° C in an incubator chamber were ‘exposed’ for 30 mins each to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 and the first movement of 20th c. Hungarian-Austrian composer Gyorgy Ligeti’s Atmospheres, ‘20%’ of cancerous cells were destroyed. Interestingly, Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D major had no effect. This is lovely, inspiring, almost magical news. Except that upon checking, it has been found to be false.
The study, ‘Direct effects of music in non-auditory cells in culture’, published in 2013 in the journal Noise & Health, suggested that music ‘could directly interfere with hormone binding’. That’s all. Even this finding was not peer-approved. One of the authors of the paper later stated that the ‘20% destroyed cancer cells’ information was an invention. But the ‘fact’ is so inspiring, inviting, nice, that its falsity is brushed aside and still considered true. In fact, it makes a wonderful case for listening to Beethoven and Ligeti. How on Earth could we possibly disapprove?
