[leereeves]

> Some things that are better supported by multiple lines of scientific research, to quote two consecutive bits from the second article: "young people’s general cognitive skills, including their ability to reason, don’t change much after the age of 14 or so." "What does change with age is the ability to reason while distracted; emotions and peer pressure are more likely to hamper decision making in teens and early twentysomethings."

Yeah, that's pretty much saying the same thing I posted.

"Young people’s general cognitive skills" (SAT and ACT scores) develop early and "don’t change much after the age of 14 or so."

"What does change with age is the ability to reason while distracted; emotions and peer pressure are more likely to hamper decision making." In other words, "Good judgment isn’t something [teens] can excel in, at least not yet."

By the way, I don't know if you noticed, but what I posted wasn't a popsci article, it was from Stanford Children's Health.

[Jach]

No, I really don't think it's accurate to say that the line about peer pressure and emotional distraction having more of an impact on teens than adults, which is grounded in research on risk-reward behavior in presence of peers, is just "in other words" the same as the claim about teens not being able to excel in good judgment. That's a huge leap and not supported. Teens can and often do exercise good judgment, including in high-stakes or emotionally charged situations. They often fail, too, but so do adults, even sometimes adults who "excel" at it. A key phrase in the Slate quote is "more likely to hamper" -- this is important and careful wording, because context matters, both in teens and adults. Sometimes a specific context (like presence of peers) matters a lot more in teens.

Yes, I did notice the source, and I found that more unfortunate because it's using Stanford's name to peddle crap. It might not be a literal popsci magazine piece, but it's peddling the same popsci flavored falsehood about how the brain isn't "fully developed" until age 25 or so and it follows the same popsci tropes of grossly oversimplifying, exaggerating, and using science words to sound legitimate while discouraging actual scientific inquiry. The article's actual audience is layman parents, not even the general public, and clueless ones at that if they need to be reminded about things like "become familiar with things that are important to your teens". As another example, its claim of saying "Adults think with the prefrontal cortex ... Teens process information with the amygdala" is not just grossly oversimplifying, it's just wrong. Both use both. It's just a very bad article.

[leereeves]

> It's just a very bad article.

I think you're taking it far too literally (do you also complain that the 2D illustration of gravity wells is inaccurate?), but I don't care to argue about it all day. Take it up with Stanford.