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Children as Run-of-the-Mill Miracles

Parents who boast of their child's developmental progress mistake a general miracle for a particular miracle. They do not so much overestimate the progress but the uniqueness of their child. Watching a being who was recently nonexistent learn to walk, speak, and socialize, they rightly marvel, but because their sample size is one, they assume they birthed a prodigy. Their judgment suffers from a deficiency not of accuracy but of scope. Could they watch other children grow up, they would discover them to be prodigies too. Their praise would spread from their family to humanity, their pride change to wonder.

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