Comments on: Dangerously Stupid Kids

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 14:03:05 +0000

You bet! Glad you’ve enjoyed those entries.

By: Jaime

Jaime — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:31:53 +0000

Just a general thumbs-up… I enjoyed your thoughts about eating fish associated with pregnancy, I always enjoy what you have to say about race and how those of us who benefit don’t get to claim to be absolved, and your comments about why arguing logic with certain useless tools is pointless was very fun. My favorite may be your comments about the Republican party and the trainwreck this election will become for them. I laughed for a long time. Thanks!

By: Iain

Iain — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 07:53:32 +0000

That kind of cynical rhetoric always annoys me, so thanks for debunking it!

By way of an interesting contrast, I recently heard about the “Flynn effect”, whereby average IQ scores on standardised tests have been rising for decades, most notably in developed countries. The difference is that Flynn and others don’t claim that kids are necessarily getting objectively smarter; there are lots of potential factors, like increasing cultural familiarity with abstract brain-teaser questions. But I like the idea that too much TV and videogaming can actually make your brain better at some important skills (at the expense of others).

By: Doc Think

Doc Think — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 02:08:02 +0000

Thank you! What a relief to see a bit of critical thinking about the Morford essay. It’s ironic that while Morford rants on the whack anti-intellectualism of the conservative religious right and others, he uses the same rhetorical tools. Anecdotes, fear and numbers masquerading as supporting data.

Jimminy, how old is he anyway? Based on his piece and depending how he defines “young” maybe he’s right?

By: Pop

Pop — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:30:22 +0000

It reminds me of a column I read in the local paper of the small south-Alabama county-seat town in which I grew up. I was probably early teens, which dates the column to about 1958 or so. The paper’s editor, not generally known to be curmudgeonly, spent his six-inch space on how the town’s youth would never amount to anything because they couldn’t put an acceptable point on a pencil with a pocket knife. Few of them carried penknives, he averred, and those who did couldn’t use them constructively. Perhaps what we’re seeing is, to borrow a phrase, the “mismeasure of man.”

Pop