tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post114689069033571874..comments2024-03-28T18:59:21.172-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Following up on science postsagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-1147375206512452252006-05-11T15:20:00.000-04:002006-05-11T15:20:00.000-04:00Ah, but I realize you're addressing this in your c...Ah, but I realize you're addressing this in your comments about appetite for risk. Those dull frontal lobes will step in at different points for different people. Again, excuse a neuro novice.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-1147374831292707002006-05-11T15:13:00.000-04:002006-05-11T15:13:00.000-04:00Some thoughts: “Dangerous” stimuli are processed f...Some thoughts: “Dangerous” stimuli are processed faster, reach emotional centers faster, and and are reinforced faster. I remember reading about amygdala activation in men in response to “reinforcing” pics of beautiful women. Makes sense that a picture of Angelina would reach centers faster than one of, oh, Mandy Moore. Could the difference in appeal of dangerously beautiful woman and “plain old” beautiful ones resemble the difference in potency between heroin and morphine, a simple matter of quickness of reinforcement? I’m a novice with this stuff.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-1147312468987326492006-05-10T21:54:00.000-04:002006-05-10T21:54:00.000-04:00BTW, the soccer birth-month stuff is bogusBTW, the soccer birth-month stuff is <A HREF="http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/05/credulous-levitt-gets-nailed-by-alert.html" REL="nofollow">bogus</A>agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-1147009866186937122006-05-07T09:51:00.000-04:002006-05-07T09:51:00.000-04:00Yes, the article itself is confused, but they're m...Yes, the article itself is confused, but they're mostly just popularizing <A HREF="http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html" REL="nofollow">this guy's</A> work. It's not bad itself, but the problem is that it's being used to downplay the first term in the "native ability + practice = mastery" equation. They make the token concession to reality further down: <I>"This is not to say that all people have equal potential. Michael Jordan, even if he hadn't spent countless hours in the gym, would still have been a better basketball player than most of us."</I>Matt McIntoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14268874489737727182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-1146975837405232192006-05-07T00:23:00.000-04:002006-05-07T00:23:00.000-04:00I wouldn't be surprised if there were some connect...I wouldn't be surprised if there were some connection, though knowing nothing about athletic ability, I don't know what it'd be.<BR/><BR/>Steve's already torn these chuckleheads a new A on abortion-crime. Now they feel like they can waltz into the science of talent and declare that talent is made rather than born. Only a fool would suggest that you're born an adroit physicist. Clearly the issue is whether you could fulfill the Behaviorist IOU of taking any old kid and turning them into a physics PhD, let alone Nobel laureate. <BR/><BR/>Over a century of psychological & historiometric work shows that willpower & practice alone don't count for squat if you don't have the necessary intelligence & personality factors. Dumbasses.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-1146971034319797342006-05-06T23:03:00.000-04:002006-05-06T23:03:00.000-04:00I think you've gotten to me. I nearly choked when ...I think you've gotten to me. I nearly choked when I read <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/magazine/07wwln_freak.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin" REL="nofollow">this in the NYT</A> just now:<BR/><BR/><I>"If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in next month's World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this quirk to be even more pronounced. On recent English teams, for instance, <B>half of the elite teenage soccer players were born in January, February or March, with the other half spread out over the remaining 9 months. In Germany, 52 elite youth players were born in the first three months of the year, with just 4 players born in the last three.</B>"</I>Matt McIntoshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14268874489737727182noreply@blogger.com