4 ms·

measure this versus age in different cultures and we'll finally have some evidence on nurture versus nature. it's nurture + nature + serious amounts of work th

measure this versus age in different cultures and we'll finally have some evidence on nurture versus nature. it's nurture + nature + serious amounts of work that makes extraordinary levels of talent; you can't get away with anything less. imho, schools and the popular culture cause brain damage, so who knows what the actual situation is. I know the article doesn't do this specifically, but since people will and do cite results like these as prescriptive facts which guide the people are waaay too complex and adaptable for helping us guide our lives. also interesting: explore similarities in background between structural brain outliers.

rajansaini 7y ago
Out of curiosity, what about schools and the popular culture do you think cause brain damage? What would your idea of an ideal education be?
- marto1 7y ago
  Not OP, but how about we start from far away and not assume education is necessary. There is a strong correlation throughout human history between a discipline not being taken seriously and the same discipline growing by leaps and bounds. It is of course usually unintentionally or intentionally covered up by academics of various sorts. One major example is medicine - most of the ridiculously useful developments we got come from people experimenting and discovering without much formal constraints. Leonardo Da Vinci comes from a "guild of arts and medicine", the discovery of the nicotine patch came from the scientist almost killing himself with concentrated nicotine, incredible discoveries from WW1 till the end of WW2. Just my 2c.
  - lliamander 7y ago
    I would say that education is definitely necessary, but it need not take the shape of putting kids in desks for 6-8 hours a day for 12 years, nor need it involve a peer-dominated social environment entirely separate from the world of adults.
    - Grustaf 7y ago
      Well, the main purpose of school is to socialise children and prepare them for spending 8 hours a day behind a desk doing things that they often don't find very interesting. So schools seem pretty apt preparation for real life.
      - lliamander 7y ago
        Socialization is good, but that doesn't mean the way schools provide it is optimal. A peer-dominated social environment all too often results in a Lord of the Flies scenario of children playing petty power games. And when the only interaction with adults is as impersonal authority figures, children are left unprepared for the world of adult interaction. Something I've seen actually work really well for socialization is homeschooling, where children are exposed both to children of a variety of ages (younger and older) and the interactions with adults are more personable. They also more often get to see adults interacting with each other as adults. I suspect there is probably a profound benefit to children who have adult figures in their own lives (aside from their parents) that they can look up to as a models of successful behavior - as opposed to merely having pop culture and other kids to model themselves after.
        Grustaf 7y ago
        Few things in this world are optimal... But homeschooling seems very suboptimal for socialization purposes, just meeting your family all the time seems like an extremely bad idea. Or what did you have in mind?
        AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        Most homeschooled children don't just meet with their own family all the time. Say you have the typical dad-works-and-mom-stays-home setup. Mom's got to go to the grocery store? Kids go, too, and practice their arithmetic in real-world environments. They also interact with at least the cashier, and probably a number of other adults. It's a nice day? They go to the park, and look at wildlife and plants. Along the way, they interact with a number of other people at the park. And so it goes. They interact with non-family-members all over the place. But if that's not enough for socialization, well... when we got concerned about socialization, we grabbed the kids, dragged them into the bathroom, and beat them up for their lunch money. You know, so that they got socialized the way that public school kids did.
  - ghoojcs 7y ago
    > There is a strong correlation throughout human history between a discipline not being taken seriously and the same discipline growing by leaps and bounds. There’s arguably a stronger trend between work that’s not taken seriously and work that is not meaningful, rigorous or grounded on solid foundations. Bad research is typically ignored because it is recognized to be poorly conceived. Most scraps left behind really are scraps.

rajansaini 7y ago

Out of curiosity, what about schools and the popular culture do you think cause brain damage? What would your idea of an ideal education be?

marto1 7y ago
Not OP, but how about we start from far away and not assume education is necessary. There is a strong correlation throughout human history between a discipline not being taken seriously and the same discipline growing by leaps and bounds. It is of course usually unintentionally or intentionally covered up by academics of various sorts. One major example is medicine - most of the ridiculously useful developments we got come from people experimenting and discovering without much formal constraints. Leonardo Da Vinci comes from a "guild of arts and medicine", the discovery of the nicotine patch came from the scientist almost killing himself with concentrated nicotine, incredible discoveries from WW1 till the end of WW2. Just my 2c.
- lliamander 7y ago
  I would say that education is definitely necessary, but it need not take the shape of putting kids in desks for 6-8 hours a day for 12 years, nor need it involve a peer-dominated social environment entirely separate from the world of adults.
  - Grustaf 7y ago
    Well, the main purpose of school is to socialise children and prepare them for spending 8 hours a day behind a desk doing things that they often don't find very interesting. So schools seem pretty apt preparation for real life.
    - lliamander 7y ago
      Socialization is good, but that doesn't mean the way schools provide it is optimal. A peer-dominated social environment all too often results in a Lord of the Flies scenario of children playing petty power games. And when the only interaction with adults is as impersonal authority figures, children are left unprepared for the world of adult interaction. Something I've seen actually work really well for socialization is homeschooling, where children are exposed both to children of a variety of ages (younger and older) and the interactions with adults are more personable. They also more often get to see adults interacting with each other as adults. I suspect there is probably a profound benefit to children who have adult figures in their own lives (aside from their parents) that they can look up to as a models of successful behavior - as opposed to merely having pop culture and other kids to model themselves after.
      - Grustaf 7y ago
        Few things in this world are optimal... But homeschooling seems very suboptimal for socialization purposes, just meeting your family all the time seems like an extremely bad idea. Or what did you have in mind?
        AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        Most homeschooled children don't just meet with their own family all the time. Say you have the typical dad-works-and-mom-stays-home setup. Mom's got to go to the grocery store? Kids go, too, and practice their arithmetic in real-world environments. They also interact with at least the cashier, and probably a number of other adults. It's a nice day? They go to the park, and look at wildlife and plants. Along the way, they interact with a number of other people at the park. And so it goes. They interact with non-family-members all over the place. But if that's not enough for socialization, well... when we got concerned about socialization, we grabbed the kids, dragged them into the bathroom, and beat them up for their lunch money. You know, so that they got socialized the way that public school kids did.
- ghoojcs 7y ago
  > There is a strong correlation throughout human history between a discipline not being taken seriously and the same discipline growing by leaps and bounds. There’s arguably a stronger trend between work that’s not taken seriously and work that is not meaningful, rigorous or grounded on solid foundations. Bad research is typically ignored because it is recognized to be poorly conceived. Most scraps left behind really are scraps.