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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
Message-ID: <D2z8nx.GsB@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <3fosrd$2if@mp.cs.niu.edu> <3g169u$s8o@mp.cs.niu.edu> <D2xL1y.MzF@hpl.hp.com> <3g42bk$jco@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 19:55:08 GMT
Lines: 37

In article <3g42bk$jco@agate.berkeley.edu>,
 <jerrybro@uclink2.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>curry@hpl.hp.com (Bo Curry) wrote:
>
>> A simple comparison
>> of the ease with which children learn language with their
>> difficulties learning arithmetic
>
>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.
>
Children are exposed to simple arithmetic as the same time as they are
exposed to their first language. Usually they pick up complex rules of 
the language, but not even simple additions. There are exceptions however.
Gauss was supposed (I remember reading it somewhere) to have had good 
arithmetic skills at the age of three. My children could recognize even 3 
digit numbers and do simple arithmetic before they could read.
Mozart is said to have been able to do simple compositions at the age of three.
There are obviously variations in brain wirings favoring mental skills.
Perhaps a wiring favoring UG is fairly widespread, although I have run into
people (quite successful in scientific fields) who, speaking few languages,
did not speak grammaticaly any of them.

Andrzej

-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
