[PN] Whorfian hypothesis revived (20 August 2004)

[waoe at mail.goo.ne.jp]

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* Reference

 Scientist says numeracy theories don't add up
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor, The Telegraph, UK, 20 August 2004
"Dr Gordon says that his research casts doubt on claims by linguists that people have an innate numerical sense. He says that the ability to perceive specific numbers is innate only up to three. Dr Gordon's work
supports findings made in the 1930s by Benjamin Lee Whorf ..."
[However, psycholinguist Danny Steinberg and others have pointed out 
flaws in at least the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. For
instance, the Japanese language seldom use plural forms, and it can be
quite a guessing game. But the Sapir-Whorf prediction that they would
be weak in mathematics is obviously disproven by the facts. - Ed.]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/20/wadds20.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/08/20/ixportal.html

[For more details see the August 19th Reuters article below]
Brazil Tribe Has Great Excuse for Poor Math Skills
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=6023199

* Periodical articles

Online schools clicking with students 
CNN.com > Education, 13 August 2004
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/08/13/b2s.elearning/index.html

The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm
Subtitle: "When our soldiers risked their lives in the Gulf, they never 
imagined that their children might suffer the consequences--or that 
their country would turn its back on them."
"After Michael's death, Melanie ... tried to close herself off as well.
But soon she began to encounter "a shocking number" of other parents
whose post-Gulf War children had been born with abnormalities. ...
Melanie founded an informal network of fellow sufferers [who've] turned
to one another because they can no longer rely upon the military."
Photography by Derek Hudson, Text by Kenneth Miller, and 
Reporting by Jimmie Briggs, Life Magazine, date unknown 
http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.html

C.I.A. Officer Denounces Agency and Sept. 11 Report
By Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, 16 August 2004
[A senior serving CIA official wrote that the 9/11 Commission report]
"will accelerate the growth of cynicism among the men and women of 
America's clandestine service who risk their lives every day to collect 
the information which would allow America to be defended - if their 
leaders were not such bureaucratic cowards." [Bin Laden could have
been eliminated but for] "Lockheed Martin's pending sale of 80 
fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6762.htm

Collegially, Steve McCarty
Professor, Osaka Jogakuin College, Japan
Online library: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/epublist.html
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