reading post numero uno. (free response)

For the first post I thought I’d start out simple with an intriguing science article from The New York Times. It is called “ Gut Instinct’s Surprising Role in Math” by Natalie Angier, written on Monday, September 15th. What first caught my eye was the article’s title. It was interesting to me because I always find myself on math test looking at a question that I have no idea how to answer. So I guess and fill in the bubble that I see best fits the question. But time and time again, the results come back showing that I am simply a terrible guesser, therefore saying my gut instinct does not have any correlation with my mathematical abilities.
Once more my initial thought was wrong- the article was actually about how visual approximations relate to one’s competence in math, and how at a young age, children can be trained to make quick ballpark estimations of numbers or situations to be able to make right decisions. Also, according to the article, this ability to make such computations has only been developed in humans in the past few thousands of years, showing one way of how the human brain has evolved. Though the scientists provide a disclaimer saying they don’t know quite how the two brain functions work (approximations and specific computations), I still find it interesting that they can tell there’s some sort of correlation between the two. You might assume that somebody would be good at math if they were good at guessing, but then again, just look at me. Maybe I just need to train my brain to get better at guessing. Its fun that scientists are making these fun discoveries to remind people to think about little things (like glancing at something then approximating and evaluating in order to make a decision) you might do on a daily basis anyway.
article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/science/16angi.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin