Kieran Egan's educational theory proposes rebuilding school curricula around five kinds of understanding to create more engaging and effective learning experiences. Longer summary

This review explores Kieran Egan's educational theory outlined in his book 'The Educated Mind', which proposes a new approach to education based on five kinds of understanding: Somatic, Mythic, Romantic, Philosophic, and Ironic. Egan argues that schools fail because they ignore cognitive tools that have worked for centuries and instead try to balance three incompatible educational goals. He suggests rebuilding the curriculum around these cognitive tools to create more engaging and effective learning experiences. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander shares and comments on excerpts from Joseph Henrich's 'The Secret of Our Success', exploring cultural evolution and its impact on human societies. Longer summary

This post highlights various passages from Joseph Henrich's book 'The Secret of Our Success', covering topics such as cultural evolution, gene-culture coevolution, social norms, and the development of human cognition and technology. Scott Alexander provides commentary and analysis on these excerpts, drawing connections to other ideas and contemporary issues. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander discusses a study challenging the idea that childhood abuse lowers IQ, and explores its implications for understanding the effects of child abuse on various outcomes. Longer summary

This post discusses a study by Danese et al. challenging the assumption that childhood abuse lowers IQ. The study found that after adjusting for pre-existing factors, there was no significant difference in IQ between abused and non-abused children. Scott Alexander explores the implications of this study in the context of shared-environment-skeptical psychiatry and discusses other studies showing limited effects of child abuse on various outcomes. He notes that while these findings are interesting, they may understate the dangers of severe abuse due to sample size limitations. The post concludes by suggesting that child abuse likely causes PTSD-like symptoms but may not have effects drastically different from normal PTSD. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander explores the idea that many adults may be missing crucial cognitive abilities, and that rationality and cognitive therapy might be teaching these missing developmental milestones. Longer summary

Scott Alexander explores the idea that developmental milestones in psychology might not be innate but learned, and that many adults may be missing crucial cognitive abilities. He discusses examples like theory of mind, understanding different perspectives, and probabilistic thinking. The post suggests that certain insights from rationality and cognitive therapy might actually be teaching these missing developmental milestones to adults. Scott wonders what mental operations he might still be missing and how to recognize and learn them. Shorter summary