Also, finally getting through with Dennet's _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_. Holy
shit, it is pretty convincing. I have had to revise at least a dozen notions I
had about everything from: Mathematics as a human descriptive system, to
pattern definition, hell, lots of stuff. If anyone here has not read it, THE
READ IT ASAP
Sodom
Eva-Lise Carlstrom wrote:
> Some time ago, somebody posted here that some researchers had tried
> applying the same intensive techniques that have been used to teach apes
> sign language to teaching humans with Down syndrome, and managed to
> offset their apparent handicap. The poster of that claim did not remember
> a source for it. Serendipitously, I have just discovered the probable
> source in an editorial in the current (Jul/Aug 98) _Analog_ magazine. In
> his article "King of the Hill (No Matter What)", Stanley Schmidt discusses
> attitudes toward the possibility of non-human intelligence (animal or
> computer). In a section on the language ability of apes, he says that Sue
> Savage-Rumbaugh, a researcher who worked with bonobos (pygmy chimps),
> later tried applying the same techniques to retarded humans and got the
> same impressive results. According to Schmidt, this is detailed in
> chapter seven of Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin's book _Kanji: The Ape at
> the Brink of the Human Mind_, which he recommends all of and particularly
> the first chapter.
>
> --Eva,
> making delayed footnotes to other people's posts
>
> PS: It was not I who called avocados a vegetable. However, since
> "vegetable" is a general term for plant substances, *and* also a more
> specific food term for plant foods generally treated in a savory rather
> than sweet fashion, I'd call it an acceptable use, despite their botanical
> fruithood.