Matthew Dicks

You are probably stupid in comparison to your children, and you only have your parents to blame

A study was released this week reiterating the dangers of drinking alcohol while pregnant and identifying the end of the first trimester as the most dangerous time for a pregnant woman to consume alcohol. 

The end of the first trimester appears to be the period when alcohol can wreak the most havoc on fetal development, causing physical deformities as well as behavioral and cognitive symptoms, according to research in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Despite the clear evidence that consuming alcohol can cause great harm to a developing fetus, alcohol still poses a serious danger, particularly when a woman does not know that she is pregnant: 

While the data reinforce current guidelines that expectant moms avoid alcohol, it’s particularly difficult for those in the first days of pregnancy, especially since 50% of pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned. That means most women may not even become aware they are pregnant until the middle or end of the first trimester.

Despite these dangers, expectant mothers drink and smoke far less frequently than they did twenty or thirty years ago, which causes me to wonder:

Has the extreme reduction of alcohol and nicotine consumption during pregnancy caused children born today to be more intelligent than the children born thirty or more years ago?

Wouldn’t it stand to reason that a generation of human beings whose mothers routinely smoked and drank during pregnancy would be less intelligent in comparison to a generation of children whose mothers reduced and/or refrained from these cognitively debilitating behaviors altogether?

All other things being equal, is it reasonable to assume that my daughter’s IQ is likely higher than that of her parents, grandparents and great grandparents?

I think so. 

I realize that if this is true, there is not much use for this information other than to gloat, but in my experience, gloating can be quite fun.

It can also lend credence to the desire to ignore the wisdom of your elders. If you parents or grandparents were bathed in an amniotic slosh of whiskey and  beer and nicotine during their most critical periods of their development, who are they to tell us that we need long term care insurance or should consider purchasing a more practical automobile?

Compared to the children born in the last twenty years, they aren’t even functioning on the same cognitive cognitive level.

At least that would be the argument I would make.

Unexpected sympathy

As a person who was once killed by bees, it was difficult to imagine any scenario in which I might feel sympathy for them.

I think of them as tiny bullets, just waiting to murder me. 

But this stunning and masterfully shot video left me heartsick for these bees.  I did not think this possible. 

If bacteria can solve it, how challenging can it be?

I have always thought that Sudoku was stupid.

In terms of productivity, it is time spent and mental energy expended with nothing to show for it. 

Yes, the solving of the puzzle probably exercises your brain in some way, but I believe that there are more productive, more meaningful ways to exercise your brain that ultimately result is something more significant than a square filled with numbers.

Plus it’s just a dumb game.

And now I’ve learned that a strain of Escherichia coli bacteria has been engineered to solve Sudoku puzzles.

Kind of makes the puzzle seem even stupider now. Huh?

Don’t swing hard!

Any golfer will tell you that the harder you swing the club, the worse the result.

Not always, but often enough. 

And yet we continue to swing hard, because it just seems to make sense.  We want the ball to go farther, so we try to hit it harder. 

It seems to work out just often enough to keep us trying.

Then I watched this TED Talk, which has nothing to do with golf, and yet it explains perfectly why golfers should not swing hard.

Today I took this advice and shot a 46. 

My best round ever.

A coincidence?

Probably. And it’s November.  I’m sure I’ll forget this lesson by spring.

I don’t love sweets.

People who prefer sugary snacks actually seem to be more kind, so says a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

I don’t even like chocolate all that much.

What so lobsters and cul-de-sacs have in common?

I like it when perceived extravagances and status symbols are proven to be not so extravagant and rather artificial. 

A century ago, lobsters were so plentiful and inexpensive that they were routinely fed to domestic servants and other low-wage workers.  The servants detested these “cockroaches of the sea” so much that their employment agreements often demanded that lobster be served no more than twice a week.

Until recently, lobster was considered an ill-tasting, ugly-to-look-at, impossible-to-eat food item only suitable for the hired help.

Then, thanks to decades of overfishing, lobster populations plummeted. 

As the scarcity of lobsters rose, prices increased, and before long, the “cockroach of the sea” was considered a delicacy.

Not because they tasted better or were any more appealing, but simply because they cost more.

I do not eat lobster.  I don’t mind the taste of lobster but find the process of eating a lobster slightly disgusting and thoroughly unrewarding.

A lot of effort for a small amount of average-tasting food.

Any food that is normally dunked in butter before eaten cannot be that good.

But when I hear people extoll the virtue of lobster, I cannot help but think of how their love for this food is not based on the food itself but the time in which they live and the modern-day price of the product.

Nothing more.   

I recently read a piece about cul-de-sacs that gives me a similar pleasure. 

The cul-de-sac has long been viewed as a suburban ideal, the place where your children can play in the street in relative safety and neighborhoods can once again become the close-knit communities that they once appeared to be on black-and-white television.

Homes located within cul-de-sacs are almost always priced higher than those in less idealized locations, and many homebuyers specifically target cul-de-sacs when looking to purchase a home. 

And yet data compiled from studies on traffic patterns and the frequency of accidents shows that cul-de-sacs aren’t as safe as you might think. 

“A lot of people feel that they want to live in a cul-de-sac, they feel like it’s a safer place to be,” Marshall says. “The reality is yes, you’re safer – if you never leave your cul-de-sac. But if you actually move around town like a normal person, your town as a whole is much more dangerous.”

It turns out that if you live in a one-cul-de-sac town, you’re probably okay. 

But if the suburban sprawl of your hometown is littered with cul-de-sacs and similarly designed streets, you’re children are in more danger than those living in the Bronx, at least when it comes to traffic.

Perceived extravagance fails again.   

The male protective shell at work

From a New York Times piece on recent testosterone research:

This is probably not the news most fathers want to hear.

Testosterone, that most male of hormones, takes a dive after a man becomes a parent. And the more he gets involved in caring for his children — changing diapers, jiggling the boy or girl on his knee, reading “Goodnight Moon” for the umpteenth time — the lower his testosterone drops.

So says the first large study measuring testosterone in men when they were single and childless and several years after they had children.

While the research is interesting, I thought the first line of the piece was shortsighted, misinformed and silly. 

Most fathers wouldn’t give research like this a second thought because most fathers are men, and men are imbued with three unique, protective traits:

1. The innate ability to assume that research like this may apply to most men but never to them.
2. The absolutely certainty in the depth and breadth of one’s manliness and corresponding levels of testosterone.
3. The unflinching self-assurance that even if one’s testosterone levels were exceedingly low, he could still overcome any hormonal limitation through sheer force of will.

Dr. Peter Ellison is quoted in the piece as saying, “Unfortunately, I think American males have been brainwashed to believe lower testosterone means that maybe you’re a wimp, that it’s because you’re not really a man.”

Dr. Peter Ellison is an idiot. 

American males have been brainwashed into navigating life with blinders on.  We hone in on good news, compartmentalize the bad and think of ourselves as a self-actualized super beings whose flaws and foibles are merely the result of the misunderstanding of others.

My testosterone has been reduced since becoming a father?

Nonsense.

But if true, irrelevant.

And if relevant, ultimately meaningless.

See?  Perfect protection.

Dodging sleep at an early age

From an article in the Times on napping in children:

Dr. Jenni was one of the authors of a large study, published in 2003 in the journal Pediatrics, which measured sleep duration across childhood. He and his colleagues documented the decrease in daytime napping and the consolidation of nighttime sleep as a group of Swiss children grew up. They also found that individual children’s sleep needs and sleep patterns tended to be consistent through age 10. In other words, children who slept less than their peers as infants grew into older children who seemed to need less sleep.

This may explain a lot. 

It is well known amongst my friends and family that I do not require much sleep.  I normally sleep for about five hours every night, but I can easily sleep less than that for a day or two without any noticeable repercussions.

My mother said that as a child, it seemed as if I never slept.  I slept fitfully as an infant, abandoned naps at an early age, and became so difficult in terms of keeping me in bed at night that in lieu of a bedtime, I was simply sent upstairs with the expectation that I could do whatever I wanted as long as I did not come downstairs again.

By the age of 5, I was deciding upon my own bedtime. 

I remember sleeping over a friend’s house for the first time in second grade and being put to bed by his mother at bedtime.  After she shut out the lights and closed the bedroom door, I rolled over in my sleeping bag and asked, “Are we being punished for something?”

The thought of being required to go to sleep was ludicrous to me.  

So perhaps there is something to the finding that children who sleep less than their peers as infants grow into older children who seem to need less sleep.

Perhaps this pattern thankfully extends into adulthood as well.

If I had to sleep 8 hours a night, I don’t know how I’d ever get anything done.

I don’t agree with him, but I can respect his answer

Did I just hear an Evangelical Republican candidate admit that he does not know if the Bible should be taken literally?

Did I just hear him say that the seven days of Creation might represent different periods of history rather than seven rotations of the planet? 

Did he just acknowledge that metaphor may have existed in Biblical times?

I still think it’s narrow-minded to reject the overwhelming scientific evidence that supports evolution, and I still would not vote for the man, but that doesn’t mean I can’t respect him.

And with this intellectually honest answer, Mike Huckabee has earned my respect.  

What is your favorite number? Favorite color?

Want to know how to annoy kids of all ages?

When they ask you for your favorite number or color are, tell them that you don’t have one.

It completely disrupts their understanding of the world.  For some, it’s as if the entire planet has shifted on its axis and the apocalypse is near. 

What makes it even better is I’m not lying when I say this. 

I have no favorite number, and I have no favorite color. 

I tell the kids that my preferences are based upon context.

Am I playing blackjack?  Then my favorite number is 21.
Am I eating hotdogs?  In that case, 2 is just right. 
Are we talking salary? If so, my favorite number is the largest one available.

It all depends on the situation.

Same goes for colors.

If I’m trying to hide in the forest at night, black is my favorite.
If I’m choosing a color for my wife to wear, white is best.
If we’re talking about my front lawn, I prefer green.

But say this to a class of elementary school students and watch many of them lose their minds.  They will argue, complain, whine, plead and insist that I choose one. 

A student once wrote an essay on why I should have a favorite color.

But I hold firm on my lack of preference. 

NPR’s Robert Krulwich has been writing about a mathematician’s recently project to collect the favorite numbers of people from around the world. 

You can participate in the survey here.

Krulwich’s latest post includes some of the more interesting reasons why participants in the survey have chosen their favorite number.  As always when it comes to Krulwich, it’s worth a read.

And just for the record, there is a box that I was able to check in the survey indicating that I do not have a favorite number, so I’m not alone in my lack of preference.