I'm cute and clever, and I can reason, too!

Charles Darwin, who attempted to explain how human intelligence developed, extended his theory of evolution to the human brain: Like the rest of our physiology, intelligence must have evolved from simpler organisms, since all animals face the same general challenges of life. They need to find mates, food, and a path through the woods, sea, or sky—tasks that Darwin argued require problem-solving and categorizing abilities.

Darwin went so far as to suggest that earthworms are cognitive beings because, based on his close observations, they have to make judgments about the kinds of leafy matter they use to block their tunnels. He hadn't expected to find thinking invertebrates and remarked that the hint of earthworm intelligence "has surprised me more than anything else in regard to worms."

To Darwin, the earthworm discovery demonstrated that degrees of intelligence could be found throughout the animal kingdom. But the Darwinian approach to animal intelligence was cast aside in the early 20th century, when researchers decided that field observations were simply "anecdotes," usually tainted by anthropomorphism. In an effort to be more rigorous, many embraced behaviorism, which regarded animals as little more than machines, and focused their studies on the laboratory white rat—since one "machine" would behave like any other.

But if animals are simply machines, how can the appearance of human intelligence be explained? Without Darwin's evolutionary perspective, the greater cognitive skills of people did not make sense biologically. Slowly the pendulum has swung away from the animal-as-machine model and back toward Darwin. A whole range of animal studies now suggest that the roots of cognition are deep, widespread, and highly malleable.

Just how easily new mental skills can evolve is perhaps best illustrated by dogs. Most owners talk to their dogs and expect them to understand. But this canine talent wasn't fully appreciated until a border collie named Rico appeared on a German TV game show in 2001. Rico knew the names of some 200 toys and acquired the names of new ones with ease.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig heard about Rico and arranged a meeting with him and his owners. That led to a scientific report revealing Rico's uncanny language ability: He could learn and remember words as quickly as a toddler. Other scientists had shown that two-year-old children—who acquire around ten new words a day—have an innate set of principles that guides this task. The ability is seen as one of the key building blocks in language acquisition. The Max Planck scientists suspect that the same principles guide Rico's word learning, and that the technique he uses for learning words is identical to that of humans.

To find more examples, the scientists read all the letters from hundreds of people claiming that their dogs had Rico's talent. In fact, only two—both border collies—had comparable skills. One of them—the researchers call her Betsy—has a vocabulary of more than 300 words.

This posting is an excerpt taken from a March 2008 article

"Animal Minds," by Virginia Morrell

and published by National Geographic Magazine.

Photo by Vincent J. Musi

The man who changed American Education

Noah Webster (1758 – 1843)

American lexicographer, textbook author, spelling reformer,

political writer, and editor. He has been called

the "Father of American Scholarship and Education."

His "blue-backed" Speller books taught five generations of children in the US how to spell and read and his name became synonymous with the term "dictionary", the modern Merriam-Webster, first published in 1828 as

"An American Dictionary of the English Language."

Noah Webster was born in Connecticut (as native daughter Andree reminded me) and really left his mark despite having trained as and failing to make a living as a lawyer. One thing he did love was the world of words, and he believed that Americans should write as Americans, deciding by common usage what their rules should be. At first he accepted the English "u" in such words as "humour" and "colour", but later decided to drop them. Thanks to him the words "centre" and "theatre" became "center" and "theater", among many others he thought were too upper-class elitist and not to American taste. A great man, and a great mind. And a man of the people, too!

Unauthorized printing of his books, and disparate copyright laws that varied among the thirteen states, led Webster to champion the federal copyright law that was successfully passed in 1790.

(picture and bio from Wikipedia)

"Color"? or "colour"?

When I was in school over at the University of Michigan, we Engineering undergrads were stigmatized as napalm-making, war-enabling weapons mongers. This stunned us, because as all these demonstrators were waving these signs in our faces we were still trying to find our classrooms and drafting boards and slide-rules and get down to work. We weren't political animals. (Engineers aren't, as a rule. They have to be reminded to vote.)

Engineering students faced heavy class-loads of math, computer science, physics, etc, etc, etc, and had little time left to be assigned for literary endeavors, but the powers that be did require us to be at least marginally well-rounded, and therefore a course in Humanities called "Great Books" was made "mandatory". (This you should interpret in student-speak as "unneeded and unwanted".)

Three times a week, therefore, a group of twenty of us "Unjin" boys (no females in those days) would show up with our paperbacks in a dusty classroom with ancient desks and discuss the classics. Our instructor was an ex-newspaper editor with Harry Potter glasses, elbow-patched tweed jacket, black beard and weary attitude. I'll call him Professor Belcher.

Nobody was fooling anybody here, Prof Belcher told us, right off. He knew and we knew and we knew he knew and he knew we knew this stuff was only for "our own good" and we'd probably toss the books in the bonfire when we were through with them, but, hey, some things transcend everyday practicality.

So we discussed the classics. This meant, or was supposed to mean, that at some point we actually READ the books on the class reading list... buy or steal the title from the bookstore, take it home, and apply eyes to print.

Some of us did this, I suspect, and many did not.

We were assigned Papers to write based on this fairly non-existent research. We were asked to express Opinions. We were expected to Think about Deep and Meaningful Things.

Being a go-getter in my youth, and creatively naive, I wrote a paper about the significance of the Knight's Tale from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. (Chosen by me at random the night before it was due, of course.)

Oh, it was a fine paper. The best that an all-nighter could buy. I waxed eloquent. I discussed and declaimed and reached far-flung conclusions any critic in the world would envy. It was a masterpiece.

And it came back marked with all these little blue marks editors make, and an "F".

I was outraged! Here was a word I'd used to describe the Knight... "amoral", blue-penciled with a cryptic "wd". "Wd?" What the hell was THAT supposed to mean? I seethed and boiled and went down the paper noting all the other little cryptic markings this Prof Belcher had appended to my tome and made a raging redlist of offenses to my honor, then wrote a rebuttal to each and every one of his remarks, my pen spewing unrepentant venom.

And I took this new version of my painfully typed paper, now festooned with a dozen new handwritten counter-arguments, and stalked off toward Prof Belcher's office. He had written one phrase in actual English at the top of the paper: "This work is troubling and confusing. Please see me." Well, by God, I was taking him up on THAT!

"You have been a very good writer up until now," he began, as we sat down, he behind his desk, me in a wooden chair nearby.

"So why did you flunk me?" I asked, an edge of controlled sarcasm in my tone.

"Because you were not clear... this paper is a jumble," he responded.

"And what is it with my use of 'amoral'?" I continued. "Was that unclear, too?"

"Oh, that? I meant that you chose the wrong word for what you were trying to say."

I narrowed my eyes and stared at him. "But if the paper was a jumble, how did you know what I was trying to say well enough to reject a perfectly good word I used saying it?"

For a moment I had him. I had him!

"Well," he mumbled finally, "I suppose you can rewrite the paper and resubmit..."

"Thank you, Professor," I responded. "I think I will."

And I did, and the word "amoral" stayed, and I got a B+ the second time, mainly by rearranging a few sentences and dropping one loose end. We had both saved face. It was a victory.

Since those long-ago years I have been in debate with people about language and words at times, especially about English usage such as "colour" instead of "color" and "judgement" instead of "judgment." I happen to prefer the English versions, but feel entitled to use whichever version strikes my fancy because Merriam-Webster says I can. I use whichever word is most appealing on the page. Sometimes I bend the rules. Sometimes I invent terms. Sometimes I use a word in an inappropriate context because it seems to make sense.

Shoot me, go ahead. 'Cause I'm a rebel!

"Stranger in My Mirror" by Mary Stebbins Taitt

It's an old story, as old as the human race. But for every individual it's brand new, all over again.

We are young... and then we age. No matter how gracefully we age, we lose some of our vitality and some of our beauty. My mother always used to say how she felt the same inside, old or young, and was shocked when she looked in the mirror. Who is that old hag? Not the lithe and winsome creaure she used to be!

Mother got old... and then she got older... and then she died. And now it's my turn.

I don't recognize myself in current pictures. Only just barely. My mother reached a point where she didn't recognize herself at all. "Who is that old lady?" she would ask. At first, it was a joke, but later she really meant it. She truly didn't know it was herself.

And I'm almost there already.

"Making a Mark" by Michael Serafin

I am not a rich man or very influential, and most of the people I've met weren't either, by the measure of gold or power. Looked at statistically, so few individuals meet this standard definition of "world-shaker" we write books about them, as if they were all-worthy of worship.

Well, maybe they are worthy of praise. They have excelled. They made a mark on this planet, and they are in our memory banks as legends, living or dead. Some are more notorious than beloved, of course (we could name names) but what should that matter, really? In virtually every case someone listened to them, looked to them as leaders, or admired their spirit.

These famous people were not "loners," none of them were. Oh, they may have lived and even died alone, but they persist in history because they were not as normal as we are. They were beyond and above normal. Perhaps you could even say ABnormal. They were Special. And because of that, they were noticed. And because they garnered this notice, you really must say they were Social people... their thoughts and passions became patterns for us all.

Do you think you are Special? I hope you do. I hope that you try to prove you are worthy, every day. But bear in mind that to be special, to excel, to carry on abnormally in a very normal world, you don't have a hope without someone to share it. You can't have a dream without help with its dreaming. You won't make a mark with no eyes wide to see it.