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From: curry@hpl.hp.com (Bo Curry)
Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
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Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 21:31:58 GMT
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: curry@hpl.hp.com (Bo Curry) wrote:

: > A simple comparison
: > of the ease with which children learn language with their
: > difficulties learning arithmetic

jerrybro@uclink2.berkeley.edu wrote:
: I'm sorry, but this sort of comparison is the sort of
: careless argument I've come to expect from supporters of
: the Chomskyan position.  Clearly the way in which children
: learn the two skills cannot be ignored.  My cousin in
: Paraguay is learning both English and arithmetic in school,
: and though it is hard to compare such dissimilar activities,
: since you've already done so I'll say that there is very little
: evidence that she's finding her English classes easier than
: her arithmetic classes.

Related arguments have been made carefully and extensively
in published works. Do we have to be careful on the net, too?

However, since anecdotal evidence seems to be acceptable,
I would counter your Paraguayan cousin with my own three
children, before they started formal schooling. They were
all regularly exposed to both language and arithmetic in the
home. It's true there was more language data, but their
learning rate was many orders of magnitude higher. At four,
all of the children were more fluent in English than their
adult Dutch relatives, who had studied it in school for
many years. Whereas their arithmetical skills, despite
patient instruction, could have been detailed on a single page.
Have you ever tried to teach a kid to read a clock?

This is not intended as a proof, of course. It's more
of a reality check. Can you name *any other* intellectual
skill which children learn with anywhere near the
astounding facility with which they learn their mother
tongue? Recognition of faces, another innate ability, may
come close.

Bo

