Human behavior differs among various individual; though there are rare cases where different people have certain similar behaviors. Similarly, babies tend to behave in a manner which seems to be surprising. In a like manner, according to Laura Schulz, their many fascinating things about science and one of them is the behavior of very young children.
Laura links the problem of generalization, which is the basis of scientific findings to the cognitive ability of babies. For instance, studies are done on random samples, and then the results are generalized to suit a vast population from which the samples were picked. In a similar manner, babies have to generalize from small samples of data all the time; they then develop expectations about what they see for the rest of their lives. Form the examples shown in the talk, the findings predicted that babies also care whether the evidence is randomly sampled or not. And like the scientist, the babies use this mindset to develop expectations about the world.
Another problem is the cause of reasoning; from the second example shown in Laura’s talk, the babies make choices depending on the evidence they see. Therefore, it can be inferred that babies have the ability to reason when different sets of evidence are presented to them. Thus, the have a logical mind.
I agree with the talk because the children behaviors are illustrated by the videos done during the study. Laura vividly explains the problem of generalization and cause of reasoning that are faced by scientists. She then illustrates how the children behave based on these issues. And it is evident that the babies behaved the same way the scientists do when presented by data. Furthermore, young children can make very many inferences from very scarce data; therefore they tend to learn much within a short span (Zelazo, 2017).
References
Zelazo, P. R. (2017). The year-old infant: A period of major cognitive change. In Regressions in Mental Development (pp. 47-80). Routledge.
