Author Topic: Science requires overcoming childhood understanding (Read 2022 times)

AKIron · « **Reply #15 on:** May 22, 2007, 08:36:35 PM »

I think Hamlet put it intriguingly if not substantively when he told Horatio "There are stranger things in this world than in all your philosophies".

My quote is lacking but the spirit was willing.

Gunthr · « **Reply #16 on:** May 22, 2007, 08:47:23 PM »

this seems appropriate, but in the face of the Arstechnica piece...

MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES

'T was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Alien toys, cast adrift through time,
Washed up on our shore,
Fall into the hands of children
Who wonder what they're for.
Children need to learn to see the world the way their parents do
If they learn to think a different way, they'll be gone from you
Before you know it...

Move the beads upon the wire frame
Make one disappear.
Learn to guide the people in the cube
You see so crystal clear.
There is more in heaven and on earth
Than your parents dream.
If you try, you'll understand at last
'Bout the way things seem.
Children need to learn to see the world the way their parents do
Now they learn to think a different way, and it's just as true,
But you don't know it...

Little girl no longer speaks in words
You can understand.
Little boy, no longer quite content
With his blocks and sand.
One dark night, you hurry to their room
Wakened by a cry,
Just in time to watch them fade away
Who knows where or why (where or why)
Children need to learn to see the world the way their parents do
These two learned to think a different way and now they're gone from you.
How could you know it?

Alien toys, cast adrift through time,
Washed up in the reeds.
Little girl tries to tell her friend
'Bout the sliding beads.
'T was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
And the mome raths outgrabe.
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Outgrabe!

lasersailor184 · « **Reply #17 on:** May 22, 2007, 08:56:35 PM »

Uh, is that english?

AKIron · « **Reply #18 on:** May 22, 2007, 08:59:09 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by lasersailor184
Uh, is that english?

Allow me to translate, it's full of stars.

Gunthr · « **Reply #19 on:** May 22, 2007, 09:03:55 PM »

not sure Lazer... but the thrust of it is that small children have ways of thinking that are figuratively beat out of us by age 5. its something like pure intuition and creativity. then socialization forces them to think like adults -and this way of thinking is gone for good in most people. people who have made some of the great eureka-type discoverys still have some of that way of thinking. most of us adults do not...

i agree the article has a subtle agenda.

don't know where the piece originally came from, but it was quoted in something i read by Lewis Padgett, a 1943 short story by that title, "Mimsy Were the Borogoves". it is about some alien devices that come into our hands, and nobody can figure out what they are or how to make them work... except the very young children of course, who intuitively know how to understand the secrets of the universe until we beat it out of them.

The languages are actually a combo of english, french and german, according to an article i read.

You are correct AKIron!

AKIron · « **Reply #20 on:** May 22, 2007, 09:25:04 PM »

If we are here for a reason, are we defeating our purpose or embracing it by seeking that from which we came?

Gunthr · « **Reply #21 on:** May 22, 2007, 09:27:20 PM »

no doubt we are embracing it. we were made for that.

majic · « **Reply #22 on:** May 22, 2007, 10:44:52 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Gunthr

i agree the article has a subtle agenda.

About as subtle as a brick.

Holden McGroin · « **Reply #23 on:** May 22, 2007, 10:52:12 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by L'EMMERDEUR
... the global warming deniers and all the other irrationals.

So it is irrational to come up with a contrarian view...

‘Tis the death of debate and that is the death knell of science.

lazs2 · « **Reply #24 on:** May 23, 2007, 08:39:48 AM »

I don't think that anyone denies that the globe gets warmer and cooler from time to time.. often... in one day!

There is a whackjob element tho that believes that the tiny amount of mans contribution to co2 (of all things) can warm the planet and overcome the natural effects of even the sun...

lazs

Charge · « **Reply #25 on:** May 23, 2007, 08:49:40 AM »

"There is a whackjob element tho that believes that the tiny amount of mans contribution to co2 (of all things) can warm the planet and overcome the natural effects of even the sun... "

Oh yeah, and some morons claim that oil is going to end and that whacking down trees in Brazil makes it more difficult for us to breathe!

-C+

x0847Marine · « **Reply #26 on:** May 23, 2007, 12:59:34 PM »

"Two developmental psychologists at Yale are now suggesting these and many other non-scientific beliefs—their list includes "unproven medical interventions; the mystical nature of out-of-body experiences; the existence of supernatural entities such as ghosts and fairies; and the legitimacy of astrology, ESP, and divination"—all originate in childhood"

"supernatural entities" = religion?, the omnipresent invisible man counts as "supernatural" IMO.. interesting article.

L'EMMERDEUR · « **Reply #27 on:** May 23, 2007, 01:30:38 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by lazs2
There is a whackjob element tho that believes that the tiny amount of mans contribution to co2 (of all things) can warm the planet and overcome the natural effects of even the sun...

Your opinion is a good example of what they are talking about. Solid science is trumped by subjective impressions about the sun and an invisible atmospheric gas. I don't know if opinions like this are due to a lack of formal scientific study or a closed mind, but it shows what we are up against, and not just in the area of climate science.

lazs2 · « **Reply #28 on:** May 23, 2007, 02:34:16 PM »

yeah... that "climate science" thing that "we" are part of... Hell... I am just glad you guys were all wrong in the seventies when "science" told us that we would all be under an ice sheet here in North America by the year 2000 and... all caused by man.

I think it was man made dust particles in the air back then or some such...

so who is "we" lemur... not that many real climate scientists out there... I have listened to some of the most prestigious and they say that it is the sun not co2. I don't believe they (scientists) know much about it yet.

maybe your studies are different and you can prove it to me?

Hell.. they can't even tell you if butter is good for you or bad for you one year to the next. One thing is certain about science and scientists... they are wrong a lot... and.. they more complex the thing the more likely that they are wrong. And.. that they have no trouble saying "nevermind...sorry you lived your life based on one of our theories and it turned out to be wrong but... ya got to believe us this time."

lazs

Seagoon · « **Reply #29 on:** May 23, 2007, 03:26:06 PM »

I see Chair, so because my children are being taught Science by two committed Evangelical parents they won't be able to comprehend gravity or believe that the solar system is Heliocentric?

Would you mind explaining a few things, like how most of the scientific advances made prior to the 19th century were made by scientists who were also believing Christians? Why the Royal Academy of Science was founded by the Puritans, who were the most conservative evangelical Christians of their day? How it was that Sir Isaac Newton, in addition to making minor discoveries like the aformentioned gravity was also able to write an excellent and thoroughly evangelical commentary on the book of Daniel (I actually referred to it occasionally when I was preaching through Daniel last year)?

Funny how men like the Wright brothers have somehow overcome their Christian upbringing and convictions to make minor contributions to the progress of science, eh?

Perhaps there might be something in the fact that we Christians actually believe that God is a God of order and not confusion, and therefore that the universe is orderly, knowable, and has a purpose and that history is moving towards a good end, and further that He has created that Universe to give Him glory and that as we we observe His creation and figure out its laws and principles we glorify Him in the process.

It just might be that that would give us more incentive to "do science" than the idea that the universe is fundamentally without design or purpose, that meaning is an illusion, that order is a comforting lie we overlay on chaos and that in the end Science is a pointless endeavor that cannot "improve life" as life is a brief meaningless blip between two oblivions, that we are just temporarily sentient piles of matter engaging in frantic self-delusion because ultimately this universe and everything in it will die not with a bang but whimper as the last usable energy is expended. If such is the case, then what does it matter if the ball goes straight or curves on exiting the tube, and how could we ever really know anyway?

- SEAGOON