Eru
Posts: 15
Joined: 7/27/2007
Status: offline
|
Bignipples,
"They did change in the 19??'s, basically by force"
So they have changed, and change often comes by force as it has to so many other cultures, whether that forces is another culture or environmental conditions.
"a society where there is no gender bias"
This is news. No gender bias? I would treat that as blog inspired crap unless there was extensive evidence. No gender bias doesn't match any human culture we know of, and it doesn't even reflect nature. We have a natural gender bias of women carrying and giving birth to offspring. That alone makes unavoidable gender biases, especially in a hunter gather society. I certainly would be interested in the evidence and explainations of no gender bias, and how it worked in a hunter gatherer society.
"This culture knows no warrior mentality"
Doubtful, especially for HUNTER gatherers, though they may not have what we would call a warrior mentality. Australian aborigines were considered a non warrior culture for many years, simply because they were unable to offer any real resistence to the British. While they were overpowered, they still had a warrior mentality one would expect to find in a human culture of that kind. The Moaris put up a real fight and were a genuine warrior culture, but it was their level of resistence which meant their fight was acknowledged. I am wondering is the bushmen have a warrior mentality, but it has just been continuously overwhelmed so it looks like they have none?
"The San are widely recognized to be among the best conservationists on the planet."
Now I know this article is all about feelgoodosophies and not facts. There is no way any isolated primitive culture has the knowledge of their environment or the globe to be considered the best conservationalists on the planet. What is the San lifespan and infant mortality rate? It is more likely that their death rate makes their population remain within carrying capacity, more than any conscious decision making. Also no group could be the best conservationalists without global knowledge, or the power to impliment change. The fact they've been shit on so often shows they cannot conserve unless others let them.
Another thing to remember with the San, we cannot reconstruct their society to the same level as the Egyptians or Romans for example. Hunter gatherer tribesmen leave very little behind, and sometimes their ancient knowledge has been told to them by archeologists, not from their ancestors. Knowledge from ancient times can be no more than a few generations or even centuries old. It is likely that the San have changed many times as other cultures or the environment changed around them, but the new hunter gather culture that emerged would be similar as there really isn't much variation that you can put into a simple hunter gather culture.
"If I interrept your view on intelligence correctly, it seems to be more static with respect to age. That, one might learn as the years go on, and acquire injuries, but that the brain itself is no better nor worse off? "
Basically, yes. You are born with your potential intelligence, and nothing can change that. If you start out with above average intelligence, you will always have that intellect. However if you don't learn anything you wont get smarter. Your level of intelligence will remain the same, so will what you are able to do with it. If you do learn, your intelligence remains the same but you get smarter and can do more with the intelligence you have. Senility or other illness is when the intelligence or ability to use it decreases, but at that stage we aren't really talking about older and younger, just healthy or sick.
"You bring up intelligence- what a person knows."
No, what a person knows is knowledge. An intelligent person can do more with the knowledge than an unintellignet one though, even if they both have the same amount of knowledge. Intelligence is the natural ability of your brain.
"An older individual would seem to have an increased likelihood of knowing more, true. But is this smarts?"
Knowledge (what you learn) plus intelligence (how well you naturally understand things) equals "smarts". Youth does not equal intelligence, it is an individual thing.
"Would you say that an older gentleman might be able to learn an alien concept faster than a boy or adolescent?"
That would depend entirely on the individual. Grab a youth who is an Idol or BB fan, then grab an older person like Mark Twain, Da Vinci, Sagan or any other of the great minds of history. Actually if we are comparing to an idol or bb fan we don't need to reach so high for the older person, just one with a pulse should do.
Also experience can come into it. An alien concept could still have similarities to known concepts. An experienced baseballer who had never seen a game of cricket could proably master the game quicker than a youth. Both would be starting out on a new game, but the older person could adjust their previous experience to fit the new concept. Their body would also be trained and experienced putting them above the young person.
"I'd like to point out that I've spent some years as a tutor. I've had students from the early teen years to the elderly years. The learning rate, as I've observed it to be, is far greater in youth. "
Well you might want to look further than your own experiences. Mature students usually do better than their youthful counterparts, that is the youthful people of similar ability, not the smart but lazy young people. Mature students usually choose their education, young people are often doing what they are told. Self motivation is much more powerful. Mature students have done the partying, and concentrate much better, they also don't have their whole lives in front of them, so they don't want to waste time. Also mature students can draw on their experiences to help them learn, whereas the young people are left with nothing but what they are learning, often without a context.
But you are right that the young have a greater ability to absorb, it is a natural response to not having the knowledge and experience but needing it to survive. Is this biological function intellignece in any sense of the word? Also having it and using it are two very different things, and that is where the mature age students application has a much bigger effect.
"Add to that being in a position where I got to watch their incredibly stupid and expensive blunders, and listen to their running around seeking somebody to blame. I have seen this among people my parents age in real life,"
And you don't see the stupidity of youth in every generation? Get back to me in 20 years and we'll see how much you've learnt and how the older you is much smarter than the younger you.
"I don't think it's so much a question of intelligence, but flexibility. Younger people (across generations) have always been more willing to try something new and different"
LOL, yes they are. Drink driving, binge drinking, drug taking, peer induced risk taking behaviour. This alone proves beyond a shadow of a doubt younger is not smarter. They don't have the knowledge or experience to laugh off peer pressure or to see the level of risk and consequences.
As for flexibility and trying something new, more knowledge gives one more flexibility by allowing more options. And sometimes the young think they are trying something new when in fact they are simply repeating the past. They only think it's new because of a lack of knowledge.
"where older people, endowed with greater knowledge and experience, tend to have a more immutable worldview, shaped by their own development."
I would suggest that the older people you are talking about do not have greater knowledge and very little experience, which is why they are so set in their ways. As kids they would have been just as dull and inflexible.
"The trial and error process we start off with as children (is that hot? touch: OW yes, it's hot) is expanded upon towards the teenage and younger adult years, where active experimentation builds on experience and helps formulate opinions that last. Think of the stereotypical college student; experimental, flexible, curious. Once the experience is had, then it becomes the foundation for thinking over experimentation, and the experimentation decreases or, for some people, stops."
Thank you. The trial and error process is basic scientific methodology. Not only is this not abandoned by older people, but it's not popular among the young either. Someone earlier suggested that the young follow things through to a logical conclusion and older people do not, but it just isn't true. Following things through to their logical conclusion makes a lot of youthful experimentation irrelevent. One can workout exactly what will happen without actually doing it, based on knowledge and previous experience. Knowing that is smart, not knowing it and experimenting anyway is young or ignorant, take your pick. Same with the drink driving and risk taking behaviour, following it through to it's logical conclusion would mean not doing it.
"Are they more willing to try something new? I think yes."
More willing, or just not aware enough to know what's not worth trying? Change and change for the better are two entirely different things, and something new is not alaway something good or something better. Trying something new because you think it will be an improvement is where one should aim, not at trying something new simply because it's new, or new to you. That's another lesson one usually learns with experience, some just learn it a lot quicker than others.
Popeye,
For a country with a voting record like yours, you seem to be giving the young people a lot more credit than they are due?
"I think the older you get the more resistant to change you become. "
That is a human trait, as a species we do not like change. So I guess as people get older less is new so change is more disruptive. For young people more is changing simply because everything is new or their own bodies are changing.
"The changes he wants to make may seem drastic and anachronistic, but I think it is time for those kinds of changes. "
So it's time for a change, so lets take a few steps backwards to make a change?
Everything people have been saying about the young so far indicates the young like change and are creative and imaginitive, yet the candidate who has the support of youth is advocating anachronistic change (steps backwards)? This does not make sense. If the young were so smart and progressive they would be supporting new imaginitive ideas, not old ones which seem to tap into fear and confusion.
"Voting for Bush was a crime. "
LOL, yes we have the same "crime" here in Australia too. Funny how it's always voting for the winner which is a crime, and only in the eyes of those who lost. Sour grapes I believe is another name for it.
"Well, I think it's a *good* thing that so many young people are getting involved in politics! "
Are they in the long term? do they all vote, or just go to events and websites? Do they actively participate in the process becoming more involved over the years, or do they drop off once their interest turns to something else? Do these young people carry commitment with their enthusiasm?
Caitlyn,
Seen a few politicians have you?
|
RE: Are Younger People Smarter than Older People? - 
Profile
RE: Are Younger People Smarter than Older People? - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread