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Can I build a tower of blocks as tali as I am? What’ll happen If we make the bike ramp go even higher? How will this schoolhouse gamę change if I’m the teacher and my big brother is the student? Such play effectively makes chlldren explorers of landscapes filled with competlng possibilities.

We do less of this as we get older, says Gopnik, and become less willing to explore novel altematives and morę conditioned to stick with familiar ones. “It’s the difference,” she says, “between going to your usual, reliable restaurant versus a new place that might be great or awful.” During chlldhood we build the brain wiring and cognitive machinery to explore; if we stay alert as adults, this early practice allows us to spot situations in which it pays to shift strategies. Might there be a Northwest Passage? Could we get to the Pole easier on dogsleds? Maybe, just maybe, we could land a rover on Mars by lowering it from a hovercraft on a cable.

“We carry this forward,” says Gopnik. And the people who keep this spirit of playful engagement with the possibilities of the moment closest at hand-the Cooks and Tupaias, the Sally Rides and Michael Barratts-are the explorers.

David Dobbs “Restlees Genes”

National Geographic 2013/01 (przekład tekstu jest w polskim wydaniu) http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/restless-genes/dobbs-text