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Mastering the geometry of the jungle

The ability of an indigenous group in Amazon jungles to identify geometrical shapes seems to justify Socrates’ claim that concepts of geometry are innate.

January 24, 2006. Source The New York Time by Nicholas Bakalar

The ability of an indigenous group in Amazon jungles to identify geometrical shapes seems to justify Socrates’ claim that concepts of geometry are innate.

An indigenous group called the Munduruku, who live in isolated villages in several Brazilian states in the Amazon jungles, have no words in their language for square, rectangle, triangle or any other geometric shape except circles.

The members use no measuring instruments or compasses, they have no maps, and their words for directions are limited to sunrise, sunset, upstream and downstream. The Munduruku language has few words for numbers beyond five except ‘few’ and ‘many,’ and even those words are not used consistently.

Yet, researchers have discovered, they appear to understand many principles of geometry as well as American children do, and in some cases almost as well as American adults. An article describing the findings appeared recently in the journal Science.

To test their understanding of geometry, the researchers presented 44 members of a Munduruku group and 54 Americans with a series of slides illustrating various geometric concepts. Each slide had six images. Five of them were examples of the concept; one was not.

The Munduruku subjects, tested by a native speaker of Munduruku working with a linguist, were asked to identify the image that was ‘weird’ or ‘ugly.’ For example, to test the concept of right angles, a slide shows five right triangles and one isosceles triangle. The isosceles triangle is the correct answer.

In data that do not appear in the article but were presented by e-mail from the authors, Munduruku children scored the same as American children -- 64 percent right -- while Munduruku adults scored 83 percent compared with 86 percent for the American adults. The researchers also tested the Munduruku with maps, demonstrating that people who had never seen a map before could use one correctly to orient themselves in space and to locate objects previously hidden in containers laid out on the ground.

Tribe has right angle on geometry

21 Jan 06. Source: Herald Sun, Australia.

LONDON -- Warrior tribes deep in the Amazonian jungle understand geometry, proving that human brains have an innate ability for pure mathematics, according to scientific research.

Children of Brazil's Munduruku peoples, with no formal education, scored the same on tests as US pupils.
Geometry study goes back to the ancient Egyptians and early Greeks.

The people living in huts along the Cururu River in the Amazon readily grasped basic geometric concepts such as lines, points, parallelism and right angles, and could use distance, angles and other relationships in maps to find objects.

Researchers in France and at Harvard University said in the journal Science the research showed humans had a core understanding of geometry.
 

We’re hard-wired for geometry
Tests with Amazon villagers hint at innate geometrical sense

Source: 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science
By Daniel B. Kane
Science
Updated: 8:16 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2006

WASHINGTON - Even if you never learned the difference between a triangle, a rectangle and a trapezoid, and you never used a ruler, a compass or a map, you would still do well on some basic geometry tests, according to a new study.

Using a series of nonverbal tests, scientists claim to have uncovered core knowledge of geometry in villagers from a remote region of the Amazon who have little schooling or experience with maps and speak a language without the mathematical language of geometry.

This research appears in Friday's issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

For thousands of years, people have wondered if the basics of geometry came naturally to all humans or if they were something you had to learn through instruction or cultural experiences. According to Plato’s writings, Socrates attempted to determine how well an uneducated slave in a Greek household understood geometry, and eventually concluded that the slave’s soul “must have always possessed this knowledge.”

While a slave in a Greek household would have been introduced to aspects of geometry through the Greek language and culture, the Mundurukú villagers who participated in the new study did not have this head start. Nevertheless, the 14 Mundurukú children, as young as 6 years old, and the 30 adults who were quizzed by anthropologist Pierre Pica from Paris VIII University did well on the basic geometry test.
 

More News:

• Humans Hard-wired for Geometry Slashdot

• Amazon tribesmen pass geometry test Telegraph.co.uk

• No lessons needed to understand geometry ideas, Amazonians show CBC Saskatchewan

• Geometry may be hard-wired into brain, study shows Reuters AlertNet

• Researchers get a geometry lesson, deep in the Amazon CBC News

• Amazon Tribes Know Geometry LiveScience.com