261–270 of 292 posts
the real deep thinkers, are not necessary good at conversation I believe, actually there is a saying "the _real_ smart people don't speak much, and they usually look dumb" sorry I did not bother to read the article, the title stopped me from reading it.
>I did not bother to read the article This is probably why you're not a 'real think er', and no I don't really agree with the article either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most simplistic scenario in which a change could happen in "one generation" is if there is one man today born with a mutated gene that protects him against X, and tomorrow X happens which kills all men in the world except him, leaving him to impregnate many women, and all future generations would be descended from him. Not saying that has ever happened (I've no idea, for all I know it might have but does seem fai…
The question is how you would get a single allele that gets you from lower apes to fully sapient humans in one mutation, in one individual, that also protects against something which killed off everyone else.
I'm incredibly not an expert on evolution (it shows I'm sure!), but from a logical point of view that seems like it's feasible at least - whether it's incredibly likely or incredibly unlikely I've no idea.
Solid parenting advice, #1 talk to your children even when they cannot talk, #2 read new books to your children every week. You can always re-read favorites but just keep the new books coming. And then combine #1 and #2 and talk to your children about the books you read. There is an excellent Radiolab podcast on "Colors" [1] which has (for me) the fairly stunning revelation that you can't see a color you can't name.…
> which has (for me) the fairly stunning revelation that you can't see a color you can't name. Then how did they get named in the first place?
Saying "Children aren't born smart" is equivalent to saying "Intelligence is determined entirely by one's environment", if I understand the claim correctly. While I'm sure talking to ones children contributes in a massively positive way to their IQ, I think it's extremely inaccurate and ignorant to the existence of real-world outliers to claim that it's the only factor. To provide just one example (out of many, I'm s…
>He is interested in the proper method of rearing children, believing that "geniuses are made, not born".
>He home-schooled their three daughters, primarily in chess, and all three went on to become strong players. An early result was Susan's winning the Budapest Chess Championship for girls under 11 at the age of four. Also his daughter, Judit, could defeat him at chess when she was just five.
Judit became the best female chess player ever and was the youngest GM back then when she was 15.
I don't know whether this is true, but it feels true, and I've been operating as if it were.
C.f. the cited book by Hart & Risley, Meaningful Differences In The Everyday Experiences of Young American Children. "The more parents talked to their children, the faster the children's vocabularies were growing and the higher children's IQ test scores at age 3 and later. [...] [By age 4], an average child in a professional family would have the accumulated experience with almost 45 million words, an average child i…
My nephew started speaking early and quite well. He can name and knows lot of things, tens or hundreds of different animals, what he does, wants etc. Some other kids I've seen don't talk at all or they don't know any words.
It seems to me it's because my sister and his husband talk with him all the time, and explain when they're doing something together. I've been trying to do the same and talk normally with him and not talk down to him or some kid nonsense. He talks back and says if he doesn't understand.
Saying "Children aren't born smart" is equivalent to saying "Intelligence is determined entirely by one's environment", if I understand the claim correctly. While I'm sure talking to ones children contributes in a massively positive way to their IQ, I think it's extremely inaccurate and ignorant to the existence of real-world outliers to claim that it's the only factor. To provide just one example (out of many, I'm s…
Given that, I'm curious to know what kinds of friends you had growing up and whether they might account for some of your 'intrinsic motivation'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Are you claiming people are solely the product of their environment? There is substantial scientific evidence to the contrary. I'm genuinely interested in what/where this is, any links / searches?
This debate is commonly referred to as the nature versus nurture debate: https://www.google.com/search?q=intelligenc+nature+vs+nurtur... It's a vigorous and deep debate. Happy reading!
As a pathologist and father, I'm 100% confident there are very good reasons for electing to abort in a variety of circumstances, not all related to the fetus or mother, though there is little reason to rejoice in any of them.
Similarly, I am 100% certain that human development is part genetics, and part environment. But we can't control our genetics. So I don't worry about that much. Maybe there's some fascinating biology discovered every few years, but I can learn good lessons from observing other parents every day.
Maybe that's a good way to frame the environment issue: if you really don't believe environment matters, then ask yourself, should you have kids so you have someone to take your frustrations out on?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Childhood IQ tests get complicated by the fact that a lot of what you measure is which children hit growth spurts already, which come with attendant intellectual improvements. But I have had a psychologist who specialized in the field say that the best predictor of adult IQ was receptive vocabulary. Meaning how many words does the child understand? Understanding words, even words you don't know how to use, predicts f…
Adult vocabulary is a strong predictor of adult IQ just as child vocabulary is, but I wouldn't recommend studying vocabulary to get smarter. Being "a predictor" says nothing about being a cause; smarter kids know more words because they're smarter, but the "predictor" relationship is established at the point of "smarter kids know more words". I am informed (by a Chinese teenager, so possibly not perfectly reliably) t…
Studying vocabulary as an adult is probably not going to get you very far. But having been exposed to a lot of vocabulary when you're young seems to be a good thing.
(He was telling this at the same time that he was telling me that my 7 year old son had the receptive vocabulary of an average 13 year old. So I was happy to hear it.)
"In addition to a lack of exposure to these 30 million words, the words a child from a low-income family has typically mastered are often negative directives, meaning words of discouragement. The ratios of encouraging versus discouraging feedback found within the study, when extrapolated, evidences that by age four, the average child from a family on welfare will hear 125,000 more words of discouragement than encouragement. When compared to the 560,000 more words of praise as opposed to discouragement that a child from a high-income family will receive, this disparity is extraordinarily vast."
30 million words fewer in 3 years?? That's 27397 words per day... at 12 waking hours per day for a child it's about 38 words per minute - I find it hard to believe.