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First the link to this week's complete list as HTML and as PDF.
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Kremen et al. and Park are open to two interpretations, that this study can't distinguish between: Either there is a cut-off age beyond which education loses its influence or the whole of general cognitive ability (GCA) is innate and inherited. Looking more closely, the whole question becomes rather irrelevant and academic, though. Only 10 % of the variation in GCA at old age is predicted by GCA at age twenty. With all other predictors languishing at the 1 % range most of it seems idiosyncratic and arbitrary. The good news for all young people looking forward to life: 90 % of your final abilities are not predetermined and open to self-development with no simple answer of how to achieve that.
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It has long been demonstrated (Hillman 1990, list of 2013-06-22) that plants can't successfully be domesticated in the presence of their wild progenitors. Only when seed is moved and sown outside its natural distribution area can human selection begin to dominate. As Kistler et al. and Zeder now demonstrate, the same is true for maize in the Americas.
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Wide areas of Africa never see any sedimentation but are deflated instead. It has long been suspected that the current find areas of human fossils in the south and east are not those areas where humans emerged but rather those, whose taphonomic qualities allowed their preservation. Sahnouni et al. supply yet another case in point to the recently growing number of counterexamples.
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At first glance Finkelstein seems to contradict and to be incompatible with de Moor of last week. A closer look shows this not to be the case. What Finkelstein believes to be a late polemic is not Jotam's parable itself but the story it's embedded in. This late addition makes it possible, indeed probable, that a very old and established parable was included as its centrepiece to lend credence to the new fabrication. Having thus become its core, it was impossible to get of in spite of its open plea – if de Moor is right in his analysis – for polytheism and secular kingship against a monotheistic and antiroyalist theocracy.
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I’ve frequently mentioned de Moor in the last few weeks. I've now gone and scanned the Beya chapter and the summary.
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Seroussi, Edwards et al., and Golledge et al. again demonstrate the limits of modeling and the fallacy of treating models as data. Seroussi and Edwards et al. even state as much explicitly.
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When smoking first came to Europe many clear sighted people had a distinct feeling of its danger and evilness, but were ridiculed and derided by the sensible majority and it took much time and effort for them to be proved right in the end. It was the same with the advent of television, even though you only need to watch and look at children in front of the goggle-box to perceive what's going on. After several previous and convincing studies Madigan et al. now offer incontrovertible proof for the stunting of small children's mental growth. At the ages they studied this goes for all screens with changing and moving content. When nearing school age I believe that some active and creative computer use will be alright, while purely consumptive use clearly isn't. When even adults undeniably get addicted (try to take Fecesbook away for 24 hours), what is it doing to the developing minds of children?
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