On Mon, 24 Apr 2000, Natasha Vita-More wrote:
>
> Specific statements that caught my eye:
>
> 1. "... senses of smell, taste, touch, sight and hearing have decreased at
> a rate of nearly one percent per year."
I think the article was claiming that these changes were occuring across
generations, for people of a given age. The whole context was that the
increasing "artificiality" of our environment is having detrimental
effects. There is an interesting relation to the Flynn effect which
says that people are getting better at abstract problem solving ability,
as measured by raw scores on IQ tests. Perhaps some other talents are
becoming weaker, to compensate.
Hal
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