Usless Science Forum
The Psyche => Science and Psychology => Topic started by: Kafiri on November 14, 2007, 01:45:17 PM
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The developmental data suggest that resistance to science will arise in children when scientific claims clash with early emerging, intuitive expectations. This resistance will persist through adulthood if the scientific claims are contested within a society, and will be especially strong if there is a non-scientific alternative that is rooted in common sense and championed by people who are taken as reliable and trustworthy. This is the current situation in the United States with regard to the central tenets of neuroscience and of evolutionary biology. These clash with intuitive beliefs about the immaterial nature of the soul and the purposeful design of humans and other animals — and, in the United States, these intuitive beliefs are particularly likely to be endorsed and transmitted by trusted religious and political authorities. Hence these are among the domains where Americans' resistance to science is the strongest.
An interesting explanation of anti-science bias, complete article at:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bloom07/bloom07_index.html (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bloom07/bloom07_index.html)
PS - Where is everybody?
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The problem with intuition is that intuition's source for truth is based (in my view) on the structure of the brain and on available knowledge and experience. Science stresses the definition of experiences as the basis for truth and this forces us to recognize more complex reasons for things.
I see intuitive mistakes all the time in my own and others educated explanations for computer hardware and software problems. Often a more careful examination of logs and actual behavior reveals more complex reasons for why things happen on our "mind machines".
I'm around. I focus mainly on dreamwork but I have a number of private contexts where I do this as well as here. So sometimes I go "underground" perhaps when I am mainly working on private stuff.