Since moving to this area of town, I've gotten to know several professors at our two local universities and other assorted academic types. Many of them became parents within a year or two of when we did, and it's been interesting to watch how these very intelligent people approach their parenting.  It seems to be much the way they approached their dissertation -- every decision is backed up with tons of research and is the result of thoughtfully focused inquiry. It's not my way (I'm very much an emotion-based decisonmaker), but it certainly seems to work well for them and their kids, and beats the hell out of clueless apathy.

So this article  in the Chicago Tribune piqued my interest. It looks at "left-brained parenting" – the tendency of scientist-parents to approach the usual parenting problems the same way they would a puzzling issue in the lab.

Physicist Dan Sisan, for example, Googled "colic and crying" and found only about 100 references, while there were something like 12,000 for "black holes."

So he did his own research and posted it on his blog,  dansisan.blogspot.com, complete with footnotes and everything. "Since both black holes and crying babies are singularities that suck in all nearby resources," he wrote, "you would think scientists would focus on the ones in people's living rooms before looking 1,600 light years away — wouldn't you?"

One would think, Dan, one would think. But as it turns out, my parents were right after all – babies pretty much cry for no reason at all. And all that folk wisdom we all hear is not actually supported by any valid science.

Not that I didn’t sort of know that already, but its nice to have someone with a lot more IQ points than me validate it with evidence.