From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Sun Jul 14 2002 - 23:37:30 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>I know, it shocks me too. The idea of such a mind out
>running around on a motorcycle in the middle of MidCal
>seems like such a waste. ...getting *just* as much
>satisfaction from that as the motorcycle ride provides.
>
I very much disagree, for while motorcycling today, joyfully listening
to the wind blowing in one ear and out the other, I had a terrific insight,
which I shall share, but not before observing a still greater tragedy than
my distraction with motorcycles. We have superbrain Amara Graps, out
riding a bicycle! Oy vey, such a mind, out doing such things! How is an
evil twin to sleep, knowing his evil twin is doing such risky behaviors?
Nowthen, back to the insight. With respect to scholastic achievement,
the most critical years are probably about ages 12 to 17, not the college
years as many assume. The foundation for how we do in college is set
before we ever get there. The mind's exposure to scolastic information
and raw ability to absorb it peaks somewhere in there I would suppose.
Now think back to about eighth thru tenth grades, when you got
your manhood. (Sorry, I havent a clue how adolescence works with
the ladies, so please bear with me.) Do you remember how you were
immediately distracted from your studies, agonizing over this girl or
that, how you had to worry about dating, getting a car, perhaps mopping
floors at the local Burger Barn to support your car, to support your
social life? Do you remember that you were suddenly very distracted
with all manner of pointless exercises, drawn away from your studies
in perhaps the middle of the most critical developmental years? Did
you not waste your effort? (Hint: Yes. You did.)
Now, recall seventh or eighth grade, locker room, a few of the guys
already had their stuff by then. Remember who those guys were?
(Hint: it wasn't you.) Were these guys the standout superbrains?
My insight is this: those who hit puberty first wasted a larger
percentage of their critical learning years in mostly fruitless efforts
to get laid. Of those few who did manage to get laid, some
percentage had to waste an enormous amount of intellectual energy
dealing with the sonsequences. In the long run, on the average,
the mavericks would have lower academic success than their late-
blooming peers.
Further insight: this theory could easily be tested with very little
cost. All one would need is a researcher to take a recorder and
walk around the junior high school, asking the male students their
name and their birth date, and asking if they would volunteer their
year-end test scores for a research project. This would be
repeated once a month or so. The researchers would record the
names and note if the voices had changed from a high boyish pitch
to a low manly one (it is not difficult to tell from a recording).
Then it should be easy to show if those voices that change early
tend to go down in academic acheivement relative to their peers.
Last month's Scientific American ran an article on delayed sexual
maturity in orangutans as a function of their social rank. This is
an example of hormonal development moderated by a strictly
environmental factor in primates. This observation leads me to
believe that the appropriate medications could conceivably delay
onset of pubescence in humans. If it is shown that there is a strong
correllation between early pubescence and lowered academic
performance, we should be able to create the analog of athletic
steroids, except for aspiring young scholars. These would artificially
delay interest in sex, so the boys can study physics and trigonometry
instead of anatomy and physiology.
spike
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