From Guy Cox
Laurence Steinberg presents some very interesting results on voting age and decision-making (11 October, p 30). But they are fatally compromised because, far from “thinking outside the box”, as the headline says, he has defined an arbitrary box called adolescence to dwell inside.
Adolescence is a modern construct, less than 100 years old. A 16-year-old can make a sensible decision about which politician to vote for, but what does this mean? People over 50 might be so fixed in their ways that they can no longer make a rational decision.
I’m not saying this is the case, but without considering the whole age spectrum, Steinberg’s results are meaningless.
St Albans, New South Wales, Australia
