Casting a Spelke on the times

I was intrigued to see this morning’s Times bravely announce that, to quote Harvard Professor of Psychology Elizabeth Spelke, “core geometrical knowledge is a universal constituent of the human mind.”

The Times reports:-

THE people of an isolated tribe in the Amazonian rainforest can understand geometry as well as American schoolchildren, according to research that suggests the branch of mathematics is deeply ingrained in human nature.

Though they have never been taught about triangles, symmetry or right angles, the Munduruku people have an intuitive grasp of these concepts that shows basic geometry to be part of humanity’s innate intellectual tool kit, scientists believe. In a series of geometrical tests devised by French and American researchers, Munduruku children and adults achieved similar scores to schoolchildren from the US who had learnt the subject in maths classes for several years.

The findings offer strong evidence that the human mind has evolved a fundamental ability to understand geometrical forms and principles.

If real, any universalism of intrinsic aptitude would give a filip to, well, universalists at this difficult time for their intellectual hegemony in the soft sciences. Hb-d is barrelling over the horizon and is going to knock them over where they stand. The only place of safety is within the Darwinian tent. The problem is: how do you become a proponent of nature and yet hang on to all your old left-liberal convictions.

One convenient answer, capable of much prostitution by fertile liberal imaginations, is Professor Spelke’s universalism of intrinsic aptitude. It has already become an intellectual battleground ... you might recall last May’s debate, The Science of Gender and Science, at Harvard between Stephen Pinker and Professor Spelke. The issue in question there was the existence of a male cognitive advantage in maths and certain of the hard sciences (remember the all-too-brief and ill-fated foray of Larry Summers into gender difference). Spelke, of course, argued against difference, and in somewhat extreme terms. She even said there is not “a shred of evidence” for it, while her own position was “as conclusive as any finding in science”.

Although Pinker mocked such overblown certainty to great effect, the important point here is not the words but the tone. It is one we know well: the strident liberal setting out to establish one-party ideological rule. Never mind the facts. It’s power and control that matter.

In addition to the Harvard debate and the South American tribal research reported by the Times today, Spelke has produced a number of “conclusive findings” that point almost by implication towards environmentalism. For example, here and here (pdf). At Harvard she runs a lab team of fresh-faced young folks bursting to explore her special little view of the innate.

I don’t know what the broad left will do ideologically as genetics forces the tabula rasa over the political horizon and out of sight. But Spelke shows that subtle niche areas with promise for leftist exploitation exist. She can even demonstrate a capacity to plant universalist concepts in the minds of every Times reader, which is really quite amazing when you think about it.

It’s something hereditarians and supporters of h-bd would profit by contemplating now - not waiting for the left’s glorious march to a new, slightly Darwinian tune, whichever it turns out to be.

Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, January 20, 2006 at 06:51 PM in Psychology
Comments (3) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by jonjayray on January 20, 2006, 11:05 PM | #

I mulled commenting on that one myself

Note that her primitive adults stayed no smarter than their young kids whereas the Anglo adults were streets ahead

Her data is interesting but the interpretation needs work

Posted by Geoff Beck (aka Leslie) on January 21, 2006, 02:00 AM | #

Mulling eh, how about some cut and thrust for a change!

Posted by Nick Tamiroff on January 21, 2006, 03:30 AM | #

Female mental process=intuitive and reasoning Male mental process=calculating and pragmatic. End of story-Ms Spelke,get your testosterone/estrogen hormones in balance,your testicals are showing.

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