[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

The tribe members struggled to perform these tasks accurately after the numbers were greater than three, Gordon reports in Science1; and their performance got worse the higher the numbers climbed. "They couldn't keep track at all," he says.

Florida. Democrats. 'Nuff Said. :)

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[lepton]

fascinating.

[GreenHornet]

The tribe members struggled to perform these tasks accurately after the numbers were greater than three, Gordon reports in Science1; and their performance got worse the higher the numbers climbed. "They couldn't keep track at all," he says.

However, many of them were still able to obtain employment with the General Accounting Office.

[SAJ]

And, by some curious coincidence, an enormous proportion of these tribes, upon emigrating to the United States, settle in or near Washingtion, D.C. and go to work for either GAO or CBO.

[Loyalist]

Did Arthur Anderson outsource any of its Enron work to Brazil?

[jnarcus]

Who cares? These tribesmen are not being called upon to do m odern mathematics...nothing inb their daily lives requires much of anything that would look like modern education....Wjat I want to know is HOW MUCH of my money went for this ridiculous research? Eskimos have many more names for snow than most English speakers, Navaho and other southwest Indians have many more terms for rain than most English speakers....All that says is one language has different uses and nuances....This is a ho hum of the highest order...academia gone wild

[happygrl]

the Pirahã simply may not recognize when one quantity of items exactly equals another

What, they can't see ?

I am convinced that intelligence is malleable, that if I.Q. tests were given these people would be low I.Q.

But if their children were raised in high culture homes in developed countries, their I.Q.s would rise.

Brain stimulation.

[elli1]

Seems like a silly debate to me. Surely these people have a ''concept'' of how many little heads will appear at the dinner table and, thus, how many rabbits & carrots need to go in the stew pot to feed them.

[ShandaLear]

The same thing is true regarding color. There are tribal people who use the same word for blue and green and cannot differntiate between the two colors as a result.

Word describe concept and ideas. Without the ability to put a name to an object, the object cannot be conceptualized.

[avg_freeper]

I remember reading in the book "Philosophy in the Flesh" by Lakoff and Johnson about a tribe that reversed the metaphor of the past being behind you and the future in front of you.

Because of this reversal these people had a completely different concept of ideas like ancestors, prediction, death, birth, and many other things.

[buccaneer81]

Butthead: "I hate numbers."

Beavis: "Heh, heh, yeah, there's like to many of 'em!"

[djf]

I wonder if there is not some type of cultural effect here, though. Certainly, if two guys went out hunting, and one came back with three squirrels(or whatever), and the other came back with, say, seven, wouldn't they innately realize how one did much better than the other?

Interesting study, no matter what the outcome.

[bert]

I have interacted with a number of illiterate people who could not do arithmetic or write any numbers.

They could however all count money.

[William Terrell]

Maybe they picked the stupidest tribe members to do the "series of tasks".

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

I once read a story about a tribe somewhere in the world which based its numbering system on the dogs the people kept. They counted things by the number of legs on the dogs, using a base 4 system. I forget what the individual legs were called. Our number four was "doggy-one", eight was "doggy-two", twelve was "doggy-three", and sixteen was "one houndred".

[as 'Civ waits for the laughter, all he hears from the darkened auditorium are crickets]

Many thanks to Roger Wagner, an old-timer Apple II programmer extraordinaire, whose joke I just mangled. ;'D

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

There is, of course a name (and a website) for this. :') I have had this book for years (bought it as a remainder) but have never read it.

---

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos

---

[RightWhale]

Crows can count to six. My neighbors lost count at four. Remember Georg Gamov's book One, Two, Three, Infinity?

[JohnBovenmyer]

This tribe also has the simplest language known.