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Re: Of Interest
Posted:
Oct 31, 2012 1:35 AM
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On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 10:11 PM, Robert Hansen <bob@rsccore.com> wrote:
>
> On Oct 30, 2012, at 12:23 PM, Louis Talman <talmanl@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The experiments reported here, and the model suggested, agree well with
> experiments reported by S. Dehaene in "The Number Sense". (And, it is worth
> noting, none of the experimenters in either case is a member of Haim's
> rather amorphous and ill-defined "Education Mafia"---contrary to your
> innuendoes.)
>
>
> I reviewed "The Number Sense" at length here awhile back, which you may or
> may not be aware of. Why can't you see that it is essentially the same
> strategy as "Chariots of the Gods"? You pick a popular hypothesis, seek out
> some pseudo proof, a rat, a monkey, a pigeon, put it together and sell some
> books. Bravo to the entrepreneurial spirit, but not science.
>
> Note: Surely you have read "Chariots of the Gods"? If not, find a copy and
> read it. Then tell me why Dehaene's book is different.
>
> Bob Hansen
>
COTG offers the author's speculation as fact. Dehaene doesn't.
COTG offers untestable models. Dehaene doesn't.
COTG begins with a hypothesis and twists evidence to fit it.
Dehaene begins with experimental evidence and suggests a hypothesis to
explain it.
Whether you like it or not, Dehaene does respectable science. If you don't
like his model, find *experimental* evidence that fries it.
Just what is it you don't like about the possibility that humans share a
number sense with most other animals, and that this number sense may be
connected with our ability to do mathematics? Why do you find it
frightening that, as Dehaene suggests, the "mathy" kids may be precisely
those who succeed in connecting their innate number sense with the
algorithms of arithmetic, but the "non-mathy" kids are the ones for whom
the connection fails?
--Louis A. Talman
Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
Metropolitan State College of Denver
<http://rowdy.mscd.edu/%7Etalmanl>
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