What to read in The New York Times

As Clive noted earlier, the whole of the New York Times will be free online from midnight tonight. I’d thoroughly recommend that you take the opportunity to start reading David Brooks, his column runs on Tuesday and Fridays. 

As well as being America’s most perceptive conservative commentator, Brooks writes absolutely fascinating stuff about the brain. Here’s something from this Friday’s column on the declining importance of IQ:

“One of the classic findings of [how IQ can be affected by the social environment] was made by H.M. Skeels back in the 1930s. He studied mentally retarded orphans who were put in foster homes. After four years, their I.Q.’s diverged an amazing 50 points from orphans who were not moved. And the remarkable thing is the mothers who adopted the orphans were themselves mentally retarded and living in a different institution. It wasn’t tutoring that produced the I.Q. spike; it was love.”