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If lullabies and hero stories are super-attractors, what are music and language? Absolute universals imply genetic mechanisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2026

Patrick E. Savage Open the ORCID record for Patrick E. Savage [Opens in a new window]
Patrick E. Savage*
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, Auckland, New Zealand patrick.savage@auckland.ac.nz http://patrickesavage.com/ Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
*
*Corresponding author.
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Abstract

I praise the synthesis and expansion of attractor theory to explain statistical universals, but critique its failure to explain absolute universals. I agree that lullabies, hero stories, and shamanism are good candidates for primarily cultural evolutionary explanations, but argue that the larger, most universal categories they are sub-phenomena of – music, language, religion – require gene-culture coevolutionary explanations.

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Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 49 , 2026 , e308
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© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press

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