Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurture debate (2003)

Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by HorizonXP on Monday September 30, 2019 @02:09PM (#21118074)

I'm going to provide some anecdata. As a new father, you get to talking with a number of new parents too, with kids that are similar in age to your own. One of the potential downsides to this is that when you talk about your kids, you start to compare them to each other and create a competition where none should exist. It's hard, but as a new parent, you should really try to avoid this and instead focus on nurturing your child to be the best he/she can be.

(Aside: what's the currently accepted pronoun there? I was always taught "they" is incorrect grammar, but without devolving this discussion, that seems to be accepted now?)

My son is 13 months old now, and crawls like a maniac, ever since he was roughly 5 months old. Very social, talkative, active, all those good things. Pulls up and stands all the time, can climb in and out of toy vehicles, climbs stairs, all of that. When I hold him while he stands, he is barely putting any weight on me. Even if he's not walking, he should be able to stand on his own. But he doesn't, and he absolutely refuses to do so. He sees cousins and other big kids walking, and isn't afraid to crawl to them and play, but it doesn't inspire him to walk.

We know a lot of other kids that are younger than him, his age, or a few months older, and they are walking. He's stronger and more capable than them, but they're walking and he isn't.

My wife and I comment on this fact all the time, about how it seems that walking has nothing to do with strength, and it's more about readiness. I doubt that my son isn't walking because he's not strong enough, nor is it because he doesn't have a good environment, save for the fact that I'm not pushing him to walk (i.e. I'm enjoying the calm before the storm.)

Readiness for walking is definitely dependent on a number of factors, but I'm willing to bet that genetics is a big part of it too. Apparently I didn't really walk until I was 2 years old.

Babies and walking is a very interesting phenomenon that really lets you see into the working of genetics and environment.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by automatoney on Monday September 30, 2019 @02:24PM (#21118221)

Quick reply to your aside: singular they is very grammatical and has been in use for centuries.

From Merriam-Webster: "they has been in consistent use as a singular pronoun since the late 1300s; that the development of singular they mirrors the development of the singular you from the plural you... and that regardless of what detractors say, nearly everyone uses the singular they in casual conversation and often in formal writing."[1]

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/singular-nonbi...

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by grahamburger on Monday September 30, 2019 @03:54PM (#21119099)

All politics and grammar rules aside, I personally find 'they' to be really confusing when referring to a specific person.

IE: "is Pat coming to lunch with us?"

"Yes, they're coming in a moment."

Leaves me wondering if 'they' is perhaps referring to some implied group of which Pat is a part, like a SO or team at work (meaning we might need to take two vehicles and get another table at the restaurant) or just Pat.

I wish there was an acceptable non-gendered singular pronoun we could all agree on.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by SAI_Peregrinus on Monday September 30, 2019 @04:39PM (#21119460)

That's confusing because "are" ("they're" is a contraction of "they are") is used for the plural. "They is" would be singular, just like "he is" or "she is". It would be ungrammatical for plural "they", but AFIACT is correct for singular "they".

So the unambiguous (but weird sounding to those unused to it) version:

"Is Pat coming to lunch with us?"

"Yes, they is coming in a moment."

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by lozf on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @03:43PM (#21129718)

> "Yes, they is coming in a moment."

Perhaps one of:

"Yes, they will be here soon / joining us shortly / along later."

would be better.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by grahamburger on Thursday October 03, 2019 @05:30PM (#21152448)

> "Yes, they will be here soon / joining us shortly / along later."

None of these clarify singular vs plural of 'they.' All of them work whether 'they' refers to one person or multiple.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by lozf on Sunday October 06, 2019 @06:16PM (#21175546)

Good point.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by automatoney on Monday September 30, 2019 @04:06PM (#21119197)

It doesn't solve the pronoun problem but if you haven't heard of them, Grice's Maxims[1] are fun to know about. Basically the idea is that you can generally assume that people you're talking to will follow certain rules, and that allows you to make assumptions. So in your example, you assume that your friend is following the maxim of quantity which allows you to conclude that if there were more people than just Pat, then they would have mentioned the others.

[1] https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/dravling/grice.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by esyir on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @12:31AM (#21122076)

Yeah, but in practice, "they" is used to describe the plural. Singular they might have been in use, but in the modern context, typically only brings confusion. Not to mention screwing with sentence flow.

Singular they are? they is? Both seem pretty offputting to me.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by szappetx on Monday September 30, 2019 @02:36PM (#21118346)

This is true, but despite this, depending on what writing style or audience you're targeting, singular "they" may still be considered incorrect.

Also if you're in the US, the use of singular "they" can be intertwined with certain politics and legislature, but that only matters for legal documents and government publications.

For casual speech, though, singular "they" is certainly correct and widely used.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by HorizonXP on Monday September 30, 2019 @02:33PM (#21118325)

Thank you! I'll file that correction in my brain.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by grahamburger on Monday September 30, 2019 @03:48PM (#21119044)

Not sure if you have more than one kid of your own but fwiw having more kids definitely reduced this kind of anxiety for me. With my first it was really hard to not compare him to other kids (like you mentioned) even though I knew intellectually it wasn't helpful for either of us to do so. With the second they were so incredibly different from each other despite being raised in the same environment that it became much more obvious how silly it would be to compare them to someone else in a totally different environment. Now we have three and the idea of having free time to spend worrying about stuff like that seems like a luxury for the well rested.*

* An exaggeration, of course. We got a few hours of sleep in a row as recently as last week.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by scruple on Monday September 30, 2019 @03:31PM (#21118865)

My wife and I are watching these differences play out in real time between our twins and it's causing a layer of latent anxiety to form. "Oh, no, Baby B is developing at Thing X faster than Baby A. Is there a problem? What do we do?" Of course there's no problem, of course the thing to do is remember that there's no problem. It's hard to maintain that state, though.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by sharadov on Monday September 30, 2019 @02:53PM (#21118521)

You're absolutely right, my older one was super-athletic - rolled over at 2 weeks on the doctors examining table, crawled till his knees bled ( even got those knee protectors, lol!), walked at 10 months. But he lagged when it came to speech, barely spoke till he was 2 months old. But now at 7 he can't stop speaking. I feel, some faculties develop very fast and some just take time. I see parents coming to the soccer class, compare their kid to my son and just feel really shitty that their kid can't do what he does. I have to tell them, that's his proclivity, he's not great at reading, writing, but anything physical he's a beast.

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Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu... by huherto on Monday September 30, 2019 @02:53PM (#21118526)

My son was like that. He was an earlier crawler. He became very good at crawling, standing and going back to the floor. But he was a very late walker. For him walking was less efficient. Turns out, walking age is not really an indicator. What is important is the age at which they try to move from one place to another. It doesn't matter if they crawl, some kids move sitting and pull themselves with one leg.

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