There is a current conflict among researchers as to whether our number sense is biological or cultural (nature or nurture). But the conflict appears to miss the point: Elaborate number sense depends on the ability to abstract. If that ability is biological, where exactly is it? If it is cultural, it is an iteration of the ability to abstract.
Tag: children
Researchers: Babies can understand complex language before they can speak
This should be set against tortuous efforts to show that chimpanzees really talk. If they did, they wouldn’t need the tortuous efforts.
At MMN: Children use reason, not gut, for moral problems
Naturalists keep trying to harpoon the reality of the human soul but never quite succeed.
Epigenetics: Researchers say separation stress may alter small children’s genes
Raised cortisol levels have been found in children separated from family for thirty or more hours a week, especially those in substandard care.
Paper claiming kids’ religiosity decreased altruism retracted
But what was the paper doing in a biology journal anyway? Maybe the underlying assumptions should be unpacked.
New book from Harvard U Press: Childhood, not evolution makes us human
Two things: If the significant changes happen to humans between birth and seven years of age, it is not q theory of evolution at all, but of intellectual and cultural development. Also, Tomasello seems not be following the party line that apes are just like us but we refuse to recognize the fact. That’s borderline heresy.
Neuroscientist: “Ultra social ability” makes humans smarter than apes
Maybe greater social intelligence is the outcome of a much higher order of underlying intelligence in humans?