Persons living in pre-tech societies are not "more intelligent" than persons living in hi-tech societies.

It occurs to me that my last post was too flippant. Diamond cheeses me off with his own little brand of racism.

Basic human intelligence is the same wherever you go. Transplant a hunter from the Australian bush to Silicon Valley, and he will fail. Transplant a computer engineer from Silicon Valley to the Outback, and he will fail. Both individuals, thrust into environments for which they are not properly equipped, will appear to be stupid.

Obviously, if your culture does not provide you with the means to store information on paper, or in computers, etc., you will have to be able to <remember> more things than someone who does not have to remember a lot of information because he can store it, and retrieve it at need.

Our hi-tech culture encourages us to be much less self-reliant than people in low-tech or pre-tech cultures. Maybe that's what Diamond means by "less intelligent."

OK, that's a silly comparison. It's my nature to think that way. But adapting to a totally unimaginable culture is not an easy task. Intellectual knowledge is nice, but only growing up within the culture can provide the sense of it being natural and instinctual.

One thing that evolution shows us is that change is inevitable, but not always favorable. [You don't need to fully accept the theory to recognize the validity of isolated insights.] Looking at history chronologically gives a false sense of the inevitabilty of progress; instead, it's a series of zig-zags that don't always go forward.

I don't know whether our present culture is a progression or a regression. I'm not inclined to be pessimistic, but there are certainly reasons to be so.

I doubt that will happen. I can't see the capability to send and receive texts as improving one's "fitness."

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/n...

I read Bill James' long critique of the Dowd Report, and I think James was highly persuasive in his claim that Dowd was biased and interpreted every possible piece of evidence in the worst possible light for Rose.

The report simply was not convincing. But James never claimed Rose was innocent, only that Dowd hadn't proved him guilty. That Rose later admitted his guilt doesn't change that.

I went to game four of the 2002 World Series (only Series game I've ever attended), and there was a sponsored presentation of the winners of a contest to name the ten greatest moments in baseball history or something like that.

I just watched the most amazing inning in college baseball.

<HOOVER, Ala. — Anthony Gomez singled home the go-ahead run — and then stole home — and Vanderbilt rode a five-run ninth inning to an 8-6 victory over Florida Saturday in the Southeastern Conference tournament.

The Commodores (33-25), aiming for their first SEC tournament title since 2007, face Mississippi State in Sunday’s championship game at 2:30 p.m. on ESPN2.

Vanderbilt fueled the comeback win over the Gators (42-18) with a flurry of stolen bases, six in the ninth. That included a triple-steal with the bases loaded when Gomez made his dash to home plate.>

But on the other hand, if all three runners go, the catcher is certainly going to try to tag the runner going home, not throw to a base. (He probably couldn't with the distraction of the runner.) But say he's out? You've still got runners on second and third, and now no force (as long as there weren't two outs).

And it's kind of funny I should've done so, because in a way I agree with him. I think our hi-tech culture makes us less self-reliant, less creative, less daring than we ought to be. It encourages us to depend on our machines, and most of us will be helpless if those machines ever fail.

A lot of people see them as ignorant. Others see them as a wise people who have received the great wisdom of their Inca and pre-Inca ancestors.

My impression is that they're just people like people everywhere, some intelligent, some not, some with good will, others only self-interested. Like anywhere else.