Scienceblind: Why Our Intuitive Theories About the World Are So Often Wrong
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.47 (759 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 154146138X |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 398 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-02-13 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"A fascinating, empathetic book. Mr. Shtulman distills some useful ways to improve science education in the classroom and for the adult public." ---Wall Street Journal
He holds degrees in psychology from Princeton and Harvard and has published several dozen scholarly articles on conceptual development and conceptual change. Since 2012, he has also hosted and produced ESPN's In the Gate podcast. . He lives in California.Barry Abrams has narrated and produced audiobooks for a variety of publishers. Based
JSB said What a wonderful book! These are important and subtle ideas. What a wonderful book! These are important and subtle ideas, clearly explained in an engaging way. It offers an accessible introduction to the cognitive science of intuitive theories, with an impressive range of examples that will convince you to think more critically about why you believe what you believe. The book came out at a perfect time, as well - I've already recommended it to many students as summer reading.. A must-read for everyone involved with science Stefaan Blancke This very well written and accessible book makes it abundantly clear that the mind has definitely not evolved to do science. Andrew Shtulman explains in great detail and with a great sense of humor how we hold intuitive theories about the world that constitute formidable cognitive obstacles both in the history of science and science education. This book is a must-read for everyone who is involved with science, from interested lay people to professional scientists, from psychologists to science communicators. Read it and learn why science is hard, but important!. Five Stars This book provides a clear and convincing explanation for a question many of us have asked ourselves at some point: why is it so difficult to understand and accept scientific concepts? Dr. Shtulman identifies the root of the difficulty: starting in childhood, we come up with intuitive (but incorrect) theories to explain the unexplainable. The problem with these theories is that they feel very real - they give us false confidence about how much we know; we will stubbornly deny evidence that contradicts our beliefs. In other words, we are denying science in favor of intuitive theories. The large-scale implication
So how do we get the world right? We must dismantle our intuitive theories and rebuild our knowledge from its foundations. Humans are born to create theories about the world-unfortunately, they're usually wrong, and keep us from understanding the world as it really is. The reward won't just be a truer picture of the world, but clearer solutions to many controversies-around vaccines, climate change, or evolution-that plague our politics today.. Why do we catch colds? What causes seasons to change? And if you fire a bullet from a gun and drop one from your hand, which bullet hits the ground first? In a pinch we almost always get these questions wrong. Worse, we regularly misconstrue fundamental qualities of the world around us. In Scienceblind, cognitive and developmental psychologist Andrew Shtulman shows that the root of our misconceptions lies in the theories about the world we develop as children. They're not only wrong, they close our minds to ideas inconsistent with them, making us unable to learn science later in life