Some People Just Never Learn

Iddo Genuth writes "German scientists recently showed what many of us suspected but could not prove — some people just don't learn. The German researchers have found a genetic factor that affects our ability to learn from our errors. The scientists demonstrated that men carrying the A1 mutation are less successful at learning to avoid mistakes than men who do not carry this genetic mutation. This finding has the potential to improve our understanding of the causes of addictive and compulsive behaviors."

Comments

I call them me

[selfdiscipline]

I was diagnosed with some sort of generic learning disability when I was a teen.

I tend to bang my brain against new concepts again and again, until I finally understand them in big chunks. I tend to overlook the obvious, and go for the bizarre interpretations of things.

So I often find myself in situations where I feel stupid for not grasping something that is readily apparent to most everyone else, but at the same time I've been successful with teaching myself certain concepts other people wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

For instance, I've taught myself how to program in Haskell, whereas most programmers run screaming from anything with more than a minimal functional paradigm component. It did take me quite a while to get some concepts in Haskell, though.