new start

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Al Globus wrote:

> The genes in the illiterate 13 year old and the successful
scientist
> were the exactly the same. The motivation came from pretty
> unpredictable places. The point is that environment has an
ENORMOUS
> effect on intelligence.

Respectfully, sir, you are in error on this point.

Your father's INTELLIGENCE was the same both before and after he
learned to read (for whatever reason ;)).

Environment, however, indeed has a tremendous impact on how we USE
the intelligence we're born with..and which remains farily constant
throughout our lives (barring catastophic interventions).

F'rinstance, had your father been born on a remote tropical island,
he would not have been expected to learn to read, and so proly never
would have. He might, however, have developed an entirely new method
for more efficient fish-netting, or built a more sea-worthy boat than
his peers coudl ever have thought of the design for.

This cuts both ways. The First World's young spookybrights may be
wizzard on the Internet, read at college level while they're still in
grade school, and shoot model rockets into the upper reaches of
Earth's atmosphere...but plunk them down on that remote tropical
island and even the most dimwitted village kids could run rings
around ours in terms of KNOWLEDGE RELEVANT TO THE CONTEXT.

I renew to anyone serious about carrying on this discussion my strong
recommendation to read Pinker's "The Blank Slate."

spike