Insights From The Youngest Minds

This is fascinating (VERY well written also). I wish that I were able to participate as a volunteer. Dr. Spelke is really "on to something" that interests me too! GO GO GO!!! : ) Please a follow up on her work when there is more to tell us! Char

I was puzzled by the photo in the print edition showing the subject with her mom in Japan in 1952. She must hold the record as being the tallest and most poised 2 year old of the twentieth century!

I remember when my daughter was 5 and actively invoved in nmaking her cheetal costume with me. The result didn't look like a cheetah at alll in my opinion but since she had decided that we would put black magic marker dots on the wrong side of yellow pajamas, it was completely satisfying to her. And let me guarantee that she had her share of store costumes , depended on what she wanted to be.

As a mom and a new grandmother, as well as a life-long teacher with a Master's in Educational Psychology, I'm fine with the descriptions of Dr. Spelke and an interesting and high-energy mom. As a matter of fact, my best Ed Psych teacher peppered his lectures and discussions with stories of his two daughers playing out Piaget's stages of development. In this article, I heard it as a parent giving her children great experiences, knowing how important that is. The article is, after all, about the development of young minds, and she was able to apply what she learned in wonderful ways with her own family. Well done!

The remarks about Dr.Spelke being a mom could only come from those who did not comprehend the article. Dr. Spelke referred to her mother giving up the piano,and it was important for her not to do that for her children. Being a mother is an important part of her life, so why white it out? Recall the article,the author was not depicting a mother who came up short.If a male scientist thought it important to be a good dad, then that shouild be part of his story.

Very interesting research. Spelke's and Pinker's affinity is pretty clear. They both believe, in the tradition of Kant, that prior to experience the mind must supply certain very basic organizing structures that make comprehension of the perceived world possible.However, when Spelke enters the debate about whether very minor, evolutionarily derived gender differences exist in aptitude for advanced mathematics, she does do so as a layperson, not as an investigator. Her research with infants has no bearing on this debate. What she studies in babies -- the basic categories that ALL normal human minds have in common by virtue of being human -- is very different from what must be studied to decide the question of why fewer women than men reach a certain very high threshold of mathematical reasoning ability needed for success in the hard sciences. We have two different types of problems here. One problem is to discover what makes us all alike; the other is to discover what, if anything, makes us (very slightly) different. Similarly, knowing the evolutionary bases of bipedalism in humans won't help us to answer the question of why some men but no women have run the 100 meters in under 10 seconds. Every physically healthy person is bipedal. Not everyone can win an Olympic track medal. Every normal child begins life using the same basic mental categories, but not everyone who goes to school will eventually be able to understand a proof in a professional journal of mathematics.

I am sure we are reading of a good mother, and her partner behind the scenes. But truly, I would have liked more about the work, and its connections to other scientists' work. Be brave, NYT! Maybe this piece belongs in NYT magazine or in a series of articles. Fascinating.

Dr. Spelke has confirmed Jean Piaget's theses in "Child's Conception of the World". Eureka!