What I understand from this study is that whether you learn music or sit on your couch will have no difference on your cognitive abilities and only make you better at music if you do the former.
That's in stark contradiction to:
The authors found studies with high-quality design, such as those which used a group of active controls – children who did not learn music but instead learned a different skill, such as dance or sports, for example – showed no effect of music education on cognitive or academic performance.
The comparison is to children engaged in some sort of behavior, not passively sitting on the couch consuming tv.
Also the whole concept of measuring intelligence in itself is dubious at best. IQ tests in particular are nothing more than measures of how good someone is at taking tests and not a good measure of intelligence.
That's in stark contradiction to:
The authors found studies with high-quality design, such as those which used a group of active controls – children who did not learn music but instead learned a different skill, such as dance or sports, for example – showed no effect of music education on cognitive or academic performance.
The comparison is to children engaged in some sort of behavior, not passively sitting on the couch consuming tv.
Also the whole concept of measuring intelligence in itself is dubious at best. IQ tests in particular are nothing more than measures of how good someone is at taking tests and not a good measure of intelligence.