MM> VH> The National Geographic has a wonderful DVD called "In
the Womb" which
MM> VH> takes a little girl from conception to birth and includes shots of
MM> VH> twins playing in the womb, surgery in the womb, and so on.  It uses
MM> VH> General Electric 4-D Sonogram, which is almost like looking through a
MM> VH> window at the child in the womb.

MM>The BBC has been running a set of series hosted by Peter Winston
MM>which are also out on DVD - and the fetal section was much as you
MM>describe the National Geographic's...

MM> VH> The pro-choice supporters are outraged by it -- because it shows how
MM> VH> HUMAN the unborn child is at a very early age.

MM>Once through its evolutionary rehearsal !

It makes it very difficult to see the unborn child as less human than
ourselves, that's for sure!

MM> VH> One point in favor of that is the independent
MM> VH> development of writing in many parts of the world.  If there is no
MM> VH> brain structure to support it, why does it keep popping up all over,
MM> VH> from the Near East to Centeral America?

MM>Excellent point...

MM> VH> Again, the independent development of writing -- and of different
MM> VH> SYSTEMS -- alphabet, heiroglyphics, sylabaries, ideographs and so on --
MM> VH> tend to show you are right.  Writing took advantage of what was already
MM> VH> there.

MM>So if they've got reading and writing round the wrong way,  how
MM>good are the prevailing hythoseses on how we read ?

I suggest our great problem is simple:  For thousands of years we taught
children to read successfully.  But the means we used, memorization,
drill, discipline, and so on, were "old fashioned."  Now we have new
methods and they are wonderful -- except that they don't work.
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