--- Bryan D Caplan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "Actually, I was thinking about kids' amazing ability to learn languages, which involves massive memorization."
Language learning is a hard-wired trait--another well established fact. Kids pick up language automatically from their environment. Some neuroscientists consider it to be analogous to imprinting, the "space" for language is already there waiting to be filled. This imprinting faculty dries up around puberty. That's why it is so much easier for kids to learn new languages, and to learn them as native speakers, i.e. to become true polyglots. It is also why most adults are never really able to get rid of their accents when after learning a new language. "...IQ is this all powerful explanatory device, or that it is meaningless when it's neither.... Not all powerful, just one of the best available." The purpose of the IQ test, and its main use, is to predict school success; it is used to identify children who need extra help in school before it's too late. How this relates to cooperative problems is another issue. -jsh ===== "...for no one admits that he incurs an obligation to another merely because that other has done him no wrong." -Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Discourse 16. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com
