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Given that people who memorize sanskrit hymns typically come from a single caste (with limited intermarriage between castes), the control should just include th

Given that people who memorize sanskrit hymns typically come from a single caste (with limited intermarriage between castes), the control should just include the members of that caste (but who don't memorize hymns) - to account for genetic effects. And as another commenter pointed out, this doesn't prove anything about Sanksrit. To prove something like that, the authors should have compared brain sizes with people who memorize other non-sanskrit texts.

f42z 9y ago
A substantial group that memorizes a foreign-language (to many) text are Muslim huffaz, who commit the entire Koran to memory. They'd make a good comparison group, given their large numbers, ethnic heterogeneity and worldwide distribution.
- ketralnis 9y ago
  Or The Knowledge, where London cab drivers have to memorise the whole of London’s streets
  - gumby 9y ago
    It is well attested that licensed London taxicab drivers (those with “the knowledge”) do in fact end up with different brain structure. I haven’t seen any studies of what they might give up in the process, though it does involve a lot of sitting. Example: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/london-taxi-memory/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/london-taxi-memor...
    - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
      Wow. I didn't know about that. Kind of casts the whole dispute with Uber thing into a whole different light, doesn't it?
      - gumby 9y ago
        Does it? A machine can indeed do a better job (in the sense of requiring negligible training) of knowing all the streets and democratized “the knowledge” which previously was the purview of a small guild. I am sorry for their sunk cost, but really minicabs+gps and now uber/Lyft et al are as good, or would be if taxis didn’t have a pick up monopoly.
        jacobush 9y ago
        It certainly CAN but a regular GPS just sucks compared to the Knowledge.
        carlmr 9y ago
        With enough driving experience even with GPS you'll learn enough about some of the cases where you can know better.
        jacobush 9y ago
        People can learn, of course. I'm just saying that a an ever changing score of Uber drivers will not be comparable to drivers with "the Knowledge". Any other claim feels preposterous to me. This can of course be replicated with a computer, but a simple GPS is not going to cut it. Advanced machine learning, voice recognition like nothing I have ever seen, very good A.I. to resolve misunderstandings about where tourists and other non frequent travellers might really want to go instead of where they actually said. And so on and so on. We can get there. An underpaid, recently started and soon to be replaced, stressed uber driver in his uncles car armed with a GPS app is just not going to cut it. Yet.
        eru 9y ago
        Forcing people to pay for the gold-plated service of the Knowledge seems like a bit trade-off though.
        9y ago
- afsina 9y ago
  When I was young I had a chance to meet two very young huffaz (we say hafız) candidate. They were probably around 10 to 12 years old. What fascinating was, they did not know any Arabic and memorize almost more than a full page a day continuously. I remember them as very calm and nice kids. Also for the context, there are around 77.000 words in Koran.
subroutine 9y ago
This is precisely what I was thinking. Something interesting that I hadn't thought of before is that we now actually live in a time where genome sequencing has become cheap enough that low-N studies (like those in MRI/fMRI-based studies) can actually begin to participant-match based on genetic background. This might become the new gold standard!
- adrianN 9y ago
  Sequencing might become cheap enough to do that, but our understanding of the functions of the different genes is so lacking that I don't think a lot of meaningful data can be extracted for most studies' subjects.
  - subroutine 9y ago
    I don't think we necessarily need to know the function of the genes in order to create a participant matching paradigm that is better than what is being employed currently. For example we can get a more precise snapshot of ancestry using sequencing than simply relying on self-reported 'race'. Also I don't think it needs to be a perfect match; simply stating that controls matched case participants within X percent ancestry would be a useful statistic to report in the methods.
  - jdietrich 9y ago
    We don't necessarily understand the functions of genes, but we're starting to establish strong correlations through genome-wide association studies. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/06/184853.1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/06/184853.1
Ar-Curunir 9y ago
While it's traditionally the Brahmin caste that memorizes Vedic hymns, there's plenty of genetic diversity even within the caste, which is spread across 10s of millions of people in very different parts of India.
- thro1237 9y ago
  May be, but there might be enough differences between castes as opposed to within a caste. The control should be as close to the experimental group as possible. Finding a control group from the same caste is inexpensive.
DrBazza 9y ago
How about London Black Cab drivers who learn "The Knowledge"? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16086233 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16086233 "Earlier studies of the brain of the cabbie had already noted the increase in "grey matter" in the hippocampus, an area found at the base of the brain."
- murukesh_s 9y ago
  Yea, exactly..
tmp1029384756 9y ago
since the book 'battle for sanskrit' by rajiv malhotra came out more hindus are now aware of efforts by various groups to denigrate sanskrit as an 'oppressive' language used to control the masses this is funny because the British actually did that exactly with imposition of english education to create the obedient clerk class for their colony, and claimed it was in fact liberation and then the germans claimed sanskrit was theirs and could not possibly be of indian local origin and nazi-fied the 'aryan' language and of course no european scholar could countenance the possibility of hindu epics like the ramayana and mahabharata let alone the vedas could be older than the homeric epics of greek civilization and conveniently 'dated' all indian history to preserve their superiority
- newen 9y ago
  That's probably people pissed off that they have to learn their mother tongue, english, and hindi to get around in india.

f42z 9y ago

A substantial group that memorizes a foreign-language (to many) text are Muslim huffaz, who commit the entire Koran to memory. They'd make a good comparison group, given their large numbers, ethnic heterogeneity and worldwide distribution.

ketralnis 9y ago
Or The Knowledge, where London cab drivers have to memorise the whole of London’s streets
- gumby 9y ago
  It is well attested that licensed London taxicab drivers (those with “the knowledge”) do in fact end up with different brain structure. I haven’t seen any studies of what they might give up in the process, though it does involve a lot of sitting. Example: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/london-taxi-memory/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/london-taxi-memor...
  - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    Wow. I didn't know about that. Kind of casts the whole dispute with Uber thing into a whole different light, doesn't it?
    - gumby 9y ago
      Does it? A machine can indeed do a better job (in the sense of requiring negligible training) of knowing all the streets and democratized “the knowledge” which previously was the purview of a small guild. I am sorry for their sunk cost, but really minicabs+gps and now uber/Lyft et al are as good, or would be if taxis didn’t have a pick up monopoly.
      - jacobush 9y ago
        It certainly CAN but a regular GPS just sucks compared to the Knowledge.
        carlmr 9y ago
        With enough driving experience even with GPS you'll learn enough about some of the cases where you can know better.
        jacobush 9y ago
        People can learn, of course. I'm just saying that a an ever changing score of Uber drivers will not be comparable to drivers with "the Knowledge". Any other claim feels preposterous to me. This can of course be replicated with a computer, but a simple GPS is not going to cut it. Advanced machine learning, voice recognition like nothing I have ever seen, very good A.I. to resolve misunderstandings about where tourists and other non frequent travellers might really want to go instead of where they actually said. And so on and so on. We can get there. An underpaid, recently started and soon to be replaced, stressed uber driver in his uncles car armed with a GPS app is just not going to cut it. Yet.
        eru 9y ago
        Forcing people to pay for the gold-plated service of the Knowledge seems like a bit trade-off though.
        9y ago
afsina 9y ago
When I was young I had a chance to meet two very young huffaz (we say hafız) candidate. They were probably around 10 to 12 years old. What fascinating was, they did not know any Arabic and memorize almost more than a full page a day continuously. I remember them as very calm and nice kids. Also for the context, there are around 77.000 words in Koran.

subroutine 9y ago

This is precisely what I was thinking. Something interesting that I hadn't thought of before is that we now actually live in a time where genome sequencing has become cheap enough that low-N studies (like those in MRI/fMRI-based studies) can actually begin to participant-match based on genetic background. This might become the new gold standard!

adrianN 9y ago
Sequencing might become cheap enough to do that, but our understanding of the functions of the different genes is so lacking that I don't think a lot of meaningful data can be extracted for most studies' subjects.
- subroutine 9y ago
  I don't think we necessarily need to know the function of the genes in order to create a participant matching paradigm that is better than what is being employed currently. For example we can get a more precise snapshot of ancestry using sequencing than simply relying on self-reported 'race'. Also I don't think it needs to be a perfect match; simply stating that controls matched case participants within X percent ancestry would be a useful statistic to report in the methods.
- jdietrich 9y ago
  We don't necessarily understand the functions of genes, but we're starting to establish strong correlations through genome-wide association studies. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/06/184853.1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/06/184853.1

Ar-Curunir 9y ago

While it's traditionally the Brahmin caste that memorizes Vedic hymns, there's plenty of genetic diversity even within the caste, which is spread across 10s of millions of people in very different parts of India.

thro1237 9y ago
May be, but there might be enough differences between castes as opposed to within a caste. The control should be as close to the experimental group as possible. Finding a control group from the same caste is inexpensive.

DrBazza 9y ago

How about London Black Cab drivers who learn "The Knowledge"? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16086233 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16086233 "Earlier studies of the brain of the cabbie had already noted the increase in "grey matter" in the hippocampus, an area found at the base of the brain."

murukesh_s 9y ago
Yea, exactly..

tmp1029384756 9y ago

since the book 'battle for sanskrit' by rajiv malhotra came out more hindus are now aware of efforts by various groups to denigrate sanskrit as an 'oppressive' language used to control the masses this is funny because the British actually did that exactly with imposition of english education to create the obedient clerk class for their colony, and claimed it was in fact liberation and then the germans claimed sanskrit was theirs and could not possibly be of indian local origin and nazi-fied the 'aryan' language and of course no european scholar could countenance the possibility of hindu epics like the ramayana and mahabharata let alone the vedas could be older than the homeric epics of greek civilization and conveniently 'dated' all indian history to preserve their superiority

newen 9y ago
That's probably people pissed off that they have to learn their mother tongue, english, and hindi to get around in india.