I'd be wanting citations to peer-reviewed papers for every claim about everything says makes a difference, and then I'd be looking up the papers myself to see whether they really said that.
I agree. It isn't enough to provide a book list in a bibliography. He needs to provide references to specific papers with evidence for what he's claiming. I would go one step beyond reading the papers that are referenced. I'd also do a general literature search (peer-reviewed, not popular) on the subject. Sometimes people cherry-pick the literature to suit their agendas (the anti-vaccine movement is a case in point).
Well, I'm pretty sure motor skills can be improved if the baby has a chance to practice, right? I would think the same applies to the ability to think and problem solve.
True, but skills and aptitude are different things. You can get better at running if you work at it every day, but most people will just never run 400 meters in under 50 seconds, no matter how much they practice.
We also know that if a child is exposed to toxic chemicals (all kids are today) and eats a crap diet, this can lead to health problems. ... So the flip side of this might be that if you provide good food, a safe healthy environment, and a stimulating one for a baby's brain, then she can develop optimally.
I think that damaging something is typically a lot easier than improving it. Think about how much damage you can do to your body with one five-second vertical fall onto concrete and how long it would take to recover from it. Or think about how quickly a tornado can wreck your house compared to how long it takes to redo the floors in only one room.
I agree about promoting optimal development. That said, I don't believe claims of huge IQ jumps. I think about it this way: if it was really possible to create long-lasting IQ gains on the order of two standard deviations (e.g. from the 50th to the 98th percentile), nearly everyone would be doing this and we'd have a crazy-smart society. It's more likely that, if anything, optimal circumstances can provide a very small boost (but I don't actually know this for a fact). The boost they provide to physical and emotional health is probably much greater and probably also has more profound effects.
Childhood cancer is the expression of the "wrong" genes you don't want turned on.
Well...cancer is an extremely complicated disease. I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but there's definitely a lot more to it than simply turning on the wrong genes (I'm not sure that the term "wrong genes" really applies). Cancer is an interplay of genetic and environmental factors. Some genes are too active and some aren't active enough. Some have mutations. Etc. etc. Cancer is a mess.
