Why we don't trust scientists
Don't trust those scientists! They make monsters and the monsters take over the world!
Don't believe those scientists! They tell us what is the truth and then change it!
Don't expect scientists to solve our problems! They don't know anything--everything is just theory!
Math and Engineering make sense to us. If you do this thing then that thing happens. If you add 2 and 2, you always get 4. If you turn a screwdriver counter clockwise (which doesn't help if you have only seen digital time pieces, by the way) it loosens the screw. We exist on an "if-then" model and rely almost totally on deductive reasoning--We analyze conditions and behaviors and take it to specifics, namely conclusions. Anything that is made is breakable, and anything that breaks can be fixed. If it can be replaced cheaper than it can be fixed, you throw out the broken one regardless of the future cost incurred. Most everything can be done nearly instantaneously. Order this, pay for this digitally, get this. Do this project with these steps in this order and you get exactly the same thing.
It even applies to creative activities. Analyze what is popular, copy the essence, recreate something. Look at Thomas Kincaid puzzles.
What can we conclude? AI could create 100K Thomas Kincaid-like puzzles. If we were FBI agents, we could conclude that due to the predominance of isolated locations, Thomas Kincaid was a serial killer.
Inductive Reasoning is different because we go from a set of conditions and behaviors and project it onto FUTURE behaviors and conditions. It's more like predicting the weather. If the wind is coming from the Southwest and the barometer is really low, we could see tornadoes and severe thunderstorms. If you live in Tornado Alley (basically the central states from Texas to Minnesota) you get used to the sirens.
Scientists make use of both Deductive Reasoning and Inductive Reasoning. When biologists look at a species of animal, they take a sample (a small manageable group) and observe how it works, how the animals move, eat, sleep... Then they deduce that if an animal posesses all the physical traits of the sample group and behaves in the same way, then it can be expected that it is somehow related to the sample they observed.
For instance: If it is grey and has a long nose and it weighs six tons, it's most likely an elephant. If it is grey and has a long nose and it weighs 100 pounds, it is not an elephant--it is an anteater. If it is grey and has a long nose and it weighs 200 pounds, then you have to get more specific on the behavior and the physical attributes. You might conclude that it is a baby elephant. But you would still be deducing. What you would induce would be that the baby elephant would be a herbivore, grow to be six tons, and migrate to follow the herd to find food. You could also induce that it would be treated by the others in the group based on its age and gender.
People have been taught to only trust DEDUCTIVE reasoning.
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then... it most likely is NOT a parrot with an identity crisis and a costume.
If we cannot directly observe the world around us, we cannot be certain of the information. That's why we have zoos. If you were to describe a tapir to someone and tell them that it was an actual animal, and even show them pictures, they might not believe it and ask you to provide proof that it was not photoshopped. So you take him to the zoo and show him and he sees this:
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Prove that the world is a sphere. It's actually not that hard, but it takes effort. It takes a stick, a measuring device, and an accurate clock. You place a stick perpendicular to the ground. Then you go directly east or west about 500 miles and place another stick. Then you go directly north or south the same distance and place another stick. You have people monitoring each of the sticks. You wait until your first stick has the smallest shadow and you measure the direction and the length of the shadow while your friends take measurements at exactly the same time. The shadows will all be different lengths along the East/West line and they may be different in direction and length in North/South lines. That's why astrolabes work. This is deductive reasoning. It is done with measurements and observation of the physical conditions: the location of the sun in the sky, the time of day, the location of the sticks. But we still have people that until they go into space themselves and circle the world, they will not believe the world is a sphere.
Now, people from ancient Greece knew that the world was a sphere. Columbus knew the world was a sphere, but it was much larger than he expected. So for nearly 500 years, we have proven that the world was a sphere, and yet...
My only conclusion is that Missouri is expanding to take over the US. Here's the story:
Many believe that Missouri's U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver, who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1897 to 1903, is the one responsible for bestowing the nickname. During his time as a member of the U.S. House Committee on Naval Affairs, Vandiver traveled to Philadelphia in 1899 to attend a naval banquet.
?During his speech at the naval event, Vandiver said,?"I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."?
I've found that this "Show me" attitude is more widespread and is no longer confined to the state of Missouri. Here's the thing. I grew up in Missouri, and if we were given proof, we were not disinclined to dismiss it out of hand. This is not true now. When you see incredible pictures provided by Hubble and James Webb telescopes, they're called "images" because the colors are based on variations of radiation emanating from the objects. So the brilliant pinks and blues and greens reflect the types of molecules present, not the color that we could see. It's like when we see infared pictures of people and they all show up as red. We know these people are not chili pepper red. We also know that hydrogen and oxygen do not show up as colors unless the pictures are filtered to differentiate them. But there are those people that insist that these pictures are made up and structures and planets and galaxies we're seeing are artist renderings and not actual proof that they exist. Guys, go to Badlands in South Dakota and check out the Milky Way.
The problem comes
This is because they want to be told what to believe, and then when they're told, they don't believe.
What needs to change? We need to learn HOW to think not WHAT to think. Pouring more information into people's heads is not going to make them smarter. 83% of it bounces off anyway! It is the information we discover for ourselves that sticks with us. It is being willing to unlearn what we cling to despite it being unproductive and not conducive to a better life. We must look out at and appreciate the world around us, and also look in and appreciate who we are and what amazing, creative, and resourceful people we can be.
How do we do that?
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