I do want to be clear that I favor the instruction of critical thinking and certainly the scientific method as part of that. The gold standard of science though is the double blind peer reviewed study and there aren’t too many people out there doing that if they are not paid for it. There is a certain amount of trust that we have in the system. I also favor a good knowledge in basic science so far as it applies to you, but my point about the amount of science to know stands. When you talk about knowing ‘Science’ you have specify which parts of ‘Science’ you are speaking of. Is it really any wonder that the worldview unchanging, ungrowing religious systems that one human being can master are popular? One thing that should definitely be taught to children and which is loosely related to science is scam avoidance. Snake oil salesmen, in the form of homeopaths, naturopaths, astrologers and psychics etc. abound. Children should be taught how they an their inevitable successors are wrong.

Now as to the question of whether it is futile to try to get people uninterested in science to be interested I will have to say I don’t think it is possible, but I will go with the data. If the evidence suggests that it is possible to get those uninterested interested then I’ll change my view. Until then all I have is anecdote. From a very young age I was interested in science, but neither of my parents was a scientist and science was not emphasized in our household. For that reason I tend to believe that the interest is inherent. I was born with an interest and if you are born without it then no amount of Hubble pictures and astronomer enthusiasm will change that. So yes, I think the argument from interest is futile. For the interested it is unnecessary and for the uninterested it is unconvincing.

BTW, I’ve played the Spanish version few days ago, as the introductory part for an astronomy 101 lesson. People was silently listening and watching a bald guy with glasses talking about… well…science :p

At the end of the lecture, I made a brief introduction to DEATH while saying: “Ok, do you remember the bald guy from the beginning? He wrote this book and you better have it if you want to survive the End of Everything”

Iḿ glad to say that many of them approached and skimmed its pages, asking where to obtain it.

Clear skies!

I can see why that might be a valid conclusion if you think the scientific method can’t be useful in every day life, but if that’s our opinion, it may be that you’re too eager to equate science with complexity. As far as I can tell, various parts of the scientific method can be (and are, unconsciously, by everyone) employed in all sorts of facets of living, from basic decision making to figuring out what the causes of personal health problems are. Understanding it just helps to formalise any process it applies to and avoid making errors of judgement.

As an analogy to your LHC argument, maths can be used to help me balance my accounts and save money on an accountant, but it can also be used to try and prove the Riemann hypothesis. I’m not going to be proving the Riemann hypothesis and will just have to trust anyone who says they have, but that would be a stupid reason not to learn maths and keep my own books. Maths and (assuming that you accept what I’m saying about applying the scientific method to everyday life) science can both be useful mental tools, and the fact that they can also be dedicated careers involving pure research doesn’t change that.

@The Chemist: those were two of the major difficulties. Lack of time was the third one

@IVAN3MAN: I know… the fact that the audio track is out of sync really annoys me, but as this was my first experiment with video editing (on a Mac) I really did not know how to quickly solve the issue. I have no idea where the delay comes from, but it was there ever since I’ve imported the video in iMovie. Any suggestion? Please?

On a slightly different note, when some years back I went to Hungary for the total solar eclipse (it was AWESOME!) I had a guide to the country that at the end had a section with “useful sentences” in the local language and one of those (right after the magyar word for “condoms”) was: “I am a powerful wizard”! Strangely enough, I never got to use it.

btw :
“sono ferito”

ciao and keep up the good work !

The second argument, that people should learn science because it is interesting, is I believe essentially futile. Those who are interested already are and those who aren’t aren’t. I know for my own part that no amount of enthusiasm on the part of jazz aficionados or sports enthusiasts will ever make me spend time with either of those things because I am just not interested in them.

As far as knowing the scientific method goes unless you are actually using it (and how many people commonly do?) most of the time your model of reality will come down to a matter of results and/or trust. If they announce that they have found the Higgs boson at the LHC we will pretty much have to trust them because none of us ordinary folk will be reproducing their results in our back yards.

So while waiting for domani (and as Shakespeare put it: domani and domani and domani creeps in this petty pace …) you can suppress your frustration with the Birra Locale and, depending on the season, the Vino Locale. If you’re in Sicily have a Granita; if you happen to be in Nicolosi try the Maccheroni con Pistacchio – it goes well with the horse antipasti.

Oh, and thanks for the video link too!

1. Phil talks pretty fast.
2. A lot of the technologies he mentions and certain idiosyncracies in his speech are cumbersome in translation and it’s going to require some imagination.

I don’t know any Italian, but just based on just those two things, good work Paolo!

JP=?

Science is not easy in Italy due to lack of funds and of structures, without mentioning the lack of wit of the government and many politicians; Italy is a net exporter of brains.

Ah, I forgot to mention that the vice-president of the CNR (National Center for Research) is a tough-line creationist

M