On the scarcity of will power

I like an article like this one in the New York Times, because it basically says lack of will power is not our fault--we are biologically built that way (no wonder I didn't managed to lost weight while writing my dissertation!). On the other hand we are not hopeless, as in the long run the more we trained ourselves, the stronger our will power become (cannot give up my New Year's Resolution yet!).

The theory in this article reminds me of a saying, I forgot who said it and how exactly it was said, but it goes something like this,

"One has to be responsible for how he/she looks after the age of 40 (30/50? not sure either). "

So as a little girl one could complain about her peculiar-looking nose, but as a lady she should have developed something, perhaps Qi, as we Chinese call it, which makes her nose become part of her facial landscape.

(That's it! No wonder MM always says he likes my nose--I thought he just said it to make me feel less sad).

Anyway, peculiar nose aside, both the willpower and the looking theory fits into the"Nature vs. Nurture" debate. In fact no debate is necessary as far as I'm concerned. Inherited genes and developed characters are just like two sides of the same coin that we have to live with.

Something still puzzles me though is that why sometimes we end up dumber when growing up. This recent Nature news reported that newborns have some intuitive sense of probability that most adults aren't seem to be capable of. What could be a sensible explanation for that?!