A long article in the NYT Mag asks why young people take so long to grow up these days. In the middle of it, we discover the hiding-in-plain-sight wisdom of car-rental companies:
Neuroscientists once thought the brain stops growing shortly after puberty, but now they know it keeps maturing well into the 20s. This new understanding comes largely from a longitudinal study of brain development sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, which started following nearly 5,000 children at ages 3 to 16 (the average age at enrollment was about 10). The scientists found the children’s brains were not fully mature until at least 25. “In retrospect I wouldn’t call it shocking, but it was at the time,” Jay Giedd, the director of the study, told me. “The only people who got this right were the car-rental companies.”
Hat tip: Joseph Asch of Dartblog.
UPDATE: From a reader:
Dear John, The Framers also had this right: “No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years . . . “