ABSTRACT
There is nothing on earth even remotely like human cognitive ability. Apparent in some other animals, cognitive potential becomes obvious even in early infancy in humans, bursts into prominence in toddlers and preschoolers, becomes laboriously harnessed in schools, and then continues on a course of lifelong development, producing all the unique adaptability and creativity with which human life and human history are littered. So dominant is cognitive ability in humans, in fact, that it emphatically defines the species. It is hardly surprising that it is among the most longstanding, and simultaneously the most difficult and demanding, areas of all scientific enquiry.
