i.q. score - delanceyplace

"Examples of abstract notions that simply didn't exist in the minds of our nineteenth-century ancestors include the theory of natural selection (formulated in 1864), and the concepts of control groups (1875) and random samples (1877). A century ago, the scientific method itself was foreign to most Americans. The general public had simply not yet been conditioned to think abstractly.

"The catalyst for the dramatic I.Q. improvements, in other words, was not some mysterious genetic mutation or magical nutritional supplement but what Flynn described as 'the [cultural] transition from pre-scientific to post- scientific operational thinking.' Over the course of the twentieth century, basic principles of science slowly filtered into public consciousness, transforming the world we live in. That transition, says Flynn, 'represents nothing less than a liberation of the human mind.'

http://www.delanceyplace.com/view_archives.php?1693

http://www.delanceyplace.com

practice - delanceyplace

"The physiology of this process also requires extraordinary amounts of elapsed time - not just hours and hours of deliberate practice each day, Ericsson found, but also thousands of hours over the course of many years. Interestingly, a number of separate studies have turned up the same common number, concluding that truly outstanding skill in any domain is rarely achieved in less than ten thousand hours of practice over ten years' time (which comes to an average of three hours per day). From sublime pianists to unusually profound physicists, researchers have been very hard-pressed to find any examples of truly extraordinary performers in any field who reached the top of their game before that ten-thousand-hour mark."

http://delanceyplace.blogspot.com/2010/07/delanceyplacecom-72310-practice.html

http://www.delanceyplace.com

buddha's teachings - delanceyplace.com

"The Buddha had no time for doctrines or creeds; he had no theology to impart, no theory about the root cause of dukkha (suffering), no tales of an Original Sin, and no definition of the Ultimate Reality. He saw no point in such speculations. Buddhism is disconcerting to those who equate faith with belief in certain inspired religious opinions. A person's theology was a matter of total indifference to the Buddha. To accept a doctrine on somebody else's authority was, in his eyes, an 'unskillful' state, which could not lead to enlightenment, because it was an abdication of personal responsibility. He saw no virtue in submitting to an official creed. 'Faith' meant trust that Nibbana (nirvana) existed and a determination to prove it to oneself. The Buddha always insisted that his disciples test everything he taught them against their own experience and take nothing on hearsay. A religious idea could all too easily become a mental idol, one more thing to cling to, when the purpose of the dhamma (dharma, religious teachings or truths) was to help people to let go."

http://delanceyplace.blogspot.com/2010/10/delanceyplacecom-10810-buddhas.html

http://www.delanceyplace.com/