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Scienceblind Lib/E: Why Our Intuitive Theories about the World Are So Often Wrong
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. 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. So how do we get the world right? We must dismantle our intuitive theories and rebuild our knowledge from its foundations. 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.
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First published April 25, 2017
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June 7, 2017
Anyone who relies on intuitive deduction (and there’s a lot about intuitive theories in this book), will instantly surmise that I am related to the author, Andrew Shtulman. That much is true: Andrew and I are cousins (although Andrew might argue that all humankind is composed of cousins, even if it’s thirty times removed). What is also true is that even if we weren’t, I would still 5-star this book because it’s thought-provoking, intelligently written, fascinating in parts, and also carries an important message: we are squandering our future by turning our collective backs on the knowledge of science.
Andrew’s premise is this: intuitive theories impede not just how much we think but how we live—the choices we make, the advice we take, the goals we pursue. The problem with relying on intuition, instead of research-based evidence, is two-fold: first, intuitive theories are usually wrong. And second, they can actually cause harm, as is evidenced by a distrust of pasteurization or vaccination because they’re not “pure” or not taking action on climate change because “it doesn’t feel warmer.”
The book is divided into two parts: intuitive theories of the physical world and intuitive theories of the biological world. Here is where I need to interject that I have an atrophied left brain, and have never had a firm understanding of “all things logical”, including the sciences and math. Fortunately, the exposition is very accessible without feeling dumbed down. Take matter, for example. The subhead is: What is the world made of? How do those component interact? Or take gravity: What makes something heavy? What makes something move?
While the first half of the book was more of an expository nature, the second half really ignited my imagination because it touches on questions like: what makes us alive? Why do we grow older? Why are there so many life forms and how do they change over time? I had to question my assumptions of why one thing (say, a plant) is alive and another (say, the sun) is not and how we evolve and grow. Most importantly, in this era of religion-led anti-evolution fervor, I recognized what’s really at stake: nothing less than understanding and accepting the trajectory of life/death and recognizing why living things are so exquisitely adapted to their environments.
By recognizing the nuances, we can accept that aging, for example, is one continuous change rather than a series of discrete changes rather than one continuous change and that inheritance is the reproductive transmission of genetic information, not just a consequence of nurture.
Yes, scientific knowledge complicates our understanding of the world rather than dumb it down or force us to believe a magical force will keep us safe in times of trouble. But with so much at stake – from stem cell research to life-saving antibiotics, form nuclear energy to climate change—how can we afford to continue to live blindly? Reevaluating our intuitive theories is a major step in helping guide us not only to how we live, but why we live.
Andrew’s premise is this: intuitive theories impede not just how much we think but how we live—the choices we make, the advice we take, the goals we pursue. The problem with relying on intuition, instead of research-based evidence, is two-fold: first, intuitive theories are usually wrong. And second, they can actually cause harm, as is evidenced by a distrust of pasteurization or vaccination because they’re not “pure” or not taking action on climate change because “it doesn’t feel warmer.”
The book is divided into two parts: intuitive theories of the physical world and intuitive theories of the biological world. Here is where I need to interject that I have an atrophied left brain, and have never had a firm understanding of “all things logical”, including the sciences and math. Fortunately, the exposition is very accessible without feeling dumbed down. Take matter, for example. The subhead is: What is the world made of? How do those component interact? Or take gravity: What makes something heavy? What makes something move?
While the first half of the book was more of an expository nature, the second half really ignited my imagination because it touches on questions like: what makes us alive? Why do we grow older? Why are there so many life forms and how do they change over time? I had to question my assumptions of why one thing (say, a plant) is alive and another (say, the sun) is not and how we evolve and grow. Most importantly, in this era of religion-led anti-evolution fervor, I recognized what’s really at stake: nothing less than understanding and accepting the trajectory of life/death and recognizing why living things are so exquisitely adapted to their environments.
By recognizing the nuances, we can accept that aging, for example, is one continuous change rather than a series of discrete changes rather than one continuous change and that inheritance is the reproductive transmission of genetic information, not just a consequence of nurture.
Yes, scientific knowledge complicates our understanding of the world rather than dumb it down or force us to believe a magical force will keep us safe in times of trouble. But with so much at stake – from stem cell research to life-saving antibiotics, form nuclear energy to climate change—how can we afford to continue to live blindly? Reevaluating our intuitive theories is a major step in helping guide us not only to how we live, but why we live.
July 4, 2018
Bookblind: Why are my Theories about the World between the Covers so Often Wrong?
“Still, resistance to science in today’s age – an age flush with scientific information and science education – requires explanation. Many ... point to ideology as an explanation,” writes Andrew Shtulman in his introduction, “Others point to misinformation, as when vaccines were falsely linked to autism ...” YES!, I thought, this is the book we all need to read; god knows we need to raise the level of scientific awareness these days.
But I should have paid more attention to how he continued: “But these factors are not the only causes of science denial. Psychologists have uncovered another: intuitive theories. ”
Well, after reading the book I have to disagree as to the importance of that. Denial of science is just not the same thing as misunderstanding it. So unfortunately, the tone and thrust of scienceblind, while well written and quite readable, is to my mind, entirely in the wrong direction.
In twelve chapters that cover topics in the physical and biological sciences, Shtulman exhaustively documents childhood psychology research in those areas; so if you want to know how infants and young children interpret natural phenomena and make sense of the world around them, then this is the book for you.
(Though I have to say, if he had played peekaboo with his kids a little more, Shtulman might not have put quite so much store on how long holding a baby’s attention related to its “mature expectations about solidity”)
But the book says much less about adults’ intuitive views of the world, and until the last couple of chapters on genetics and evolution, nothing about their misconceptions that is really relevant or important to understanding current scientific or medical controversies. Virtually every example concerns children up to about eleven years old. Yes, we all go through those stages of understanding, but adults do actually evolve beyond that, and although Shtulman’s thesis is that we don’t, he doesn’t really present much evidence for that.
(And if any adults are still struggling with Object Permanence, well, there’s no hope for that lot anyway - talking to you, Climate Change Deniers)
So, I have a fairly long list of things I had problems with – I feel obliged to do this because the book has received such rave reviews.
First, the minor stuff. There are some curious “huh...??” moments: for example, he claims that only psychology teaches the role of vision in the study of light, which is total nonsense of course; it is part of any basic physics course. If adults don’t know or remember what they learned, well yes, that does point to a deficiency in teaching methods or science literacy – the very point he was trying to make; the problem is, in the grand ranking of misunderstandings, it really isn’t that important. I don’t think adults have strong emotional attachments to beliefs about things like vision, so it would probably be relatively easy to re-educate them, if that were necessary. Perhaps even through the tutorials that he seems to love so much.
In another section he says “Four-year-olds, in general, are surprisingly bad at discerning the nutritional value of food.” [my emphasis]. You don’t say! And this is a man who has two kids of his own; I really wonder what conversations went on in his house.
And this: ”Indeed, it’s presumptuous to think that preschoolers have acquired a germ theory of disease from casual exposure to germ-related talk when it took scientists hundreds of years to discover germ theory”. Umm, yes. It certainly is. But who thinks preschoolers have a coherent theory of germs?
And what can you say about someone who writes, without the slightest wink or trace of irony, that “we quibble over whether the glass is half full or empty, when in reality it is always full of both liquid and gas?” Perhaps that was supposed to be a joke, but Shtulman is no Bill Bryson (see A Short History of Nearly Everything), and humour is not one of his tools. So the appearance of not one but two satirical research reports from The Onion, which he quotes for no obvious reason, seem startlingly misplaced.
I’m afraid Shtulman simply comes across as an earnest and dedicated teacher with a sincere desire to educate the world, but who is trapped in the bubble of his own psychological research. And for this reason, I believe he is simply wrong to place incorrect intuitive ideas as the core reason for the current state we find ourselves in. Here is a prime example of why:
He (also) incorrectly says that interbreeding and genetic engineering are the same thing. (They are not, and he needs to read his own chapter on inheritance – the first is something that could have occurred through evolution, but with a big helping hand to speed it along; gene splicing has never occurred spontaneously).
But anyway, following from that, he proceeds to disparage concerns about GMO as being non-scientific, and backs it up with a straw man example of a survey showing people are concerned about “DNA” in food.
Well, my concerns are not with GM corn being dangerous to eat – I simply don’t want anything to do with a multinational that is trying to monopolize the world’s strains of corn, patenting a monoculture that is resistant to toxic levels of weedkiller, and suing farmers found with their patented seed and even entire countries that decline to be part of the racket.
In short, I am wary of GMO because of a documented history of Bad Corporate Behaviour, and my knowledge about genetics, or lack of it, has nothing to do with it. It is this political/social component, and the rise of the Internet as a (mis)information medium, that is probably the most important aspect of science knowledge and science denial today.
Why is there so much antipathy to scientific and medical knowledge these days?
Why does stating “97% of scientists agree on climate change” convince many of just the opposite? (Shtulman seems to believe that this is a matter of science education not having promoted this fact enough!)
And how could more or better medical / statistical knowledge have enabled anyone to see through the vaccine – autism link? It’s not as if medical interventions have never had unforeseen side-effects. Shtulman writes, “those parents couldn’t wrap their minds around the idea of injecting their children with an inactivated virus.”
NO! The real problem was that Wakefield had an interest in the outcome, fabricated the study, the faked results were amplified through the bullhorn of the internet and social media, and happened to gel with certain parents’ (not-unjustified) antipathy to Big Pharma. Many of these parents were college-educated and liberal – the exact group that Shtulman says are least susceptible to incorrect scientific intuition, so that gives the lie to better education being the solution right there.
These are absolutely critical questions – ones that Shtulman even mentions in his introduction – and then utterly fails to address.
I know, I know, I shouldn’t be criticizing scienceblind for not being the book I thought it was, but honestly, I was really disappointed.
So read this book if you want a clear but wordy look at how children develop ideas about science, or if you want to educate yourself out of your scientific misconceptions – though I think you actually have to be quite science-literate to read it in the first place.
“Still, resistance to science in today’s age – an age flush with scientific information and science education – requires explanation. Many ... point to ideology as an explanation,” writes Andrew Shtulman in his introduction, “Others point to misinformation, as when vaccines were falsely linked to autism ...” YES!, I thought, this is the book we all need to read; god knows we need to raise the level of scientific awareness these days.
But I should have paid more attention to how he continued: “But these factors are not the only causes of science denial. Psychologists have uncovered another: intuitive theories. ”
Well, after reading the book I have to disagree as to the importance of that. Denial of science is just not the same thing as misunderstanding it. So unfortunately, the tone and thrust of scienceblind, while well written and quite readable, is to my mind, entirely in the wrong direction.
In twelve chapters that cover topics in the physical and biological sciences, Shtulman exhaustively documents childhood psychology research in those areas; so if you want to know how infants and young children interpret natural phenomena and make sense of the world around them, then this is the book for you.
(Though I have to say, if he had played peekaboo with his kids a little more, Shtulman might not have put quite so much store on how long holding a baby’s attention related to its “mature expectations about solidity”)
But the book says much less about adults’ intuitive views of the world, and until the last couple of chapters on genetics and evolution, nothing about their misconceptions that is really relevant or important to understanding current scientific or medical controversies. Virtually every example concerns children up to about eleven years old. Yes, we all go through those stages of understanding, but adults do actually evolve beyond that, and although Shtulman’s thesis is that we don’t, he doesn’t really present much evidence for that.
(And if any adults are still struggling with Object Permanence, well, there’s no hope for that lot anyway - talking to you, Climate Change Deniers)
So, I have a fairly long list of things I had problems with – I feel obliged to do this because the book has received such rave reviews.
First, the minor stuff. There are some curious “huh...??” moments: for example, he claims that only psychology teaches the role of vision in the study of light, which is total nonsense of course; it is part of any basic physics course. If adults don’t know or remember what they learned, well yes, that does point to a deficiency in teaching methods or science literacy – the very point he was trying to make; the problem is, in the grand ranking of misunderstandings, it really isn’t that important. I don’t think adults have strong emotional attachments to beliefs about things like vision, so it would probably be relatively easy to re-educate them, if that were necessary. Perhaps even through the tutorials that he seems to love so much.
In another section he says “Four-year-olds, in general, are surprisingly bad at discerning the nutritional value of food.” [my emphasis]. You don’t say! And this is a man who has two kids of his own; I really wonder what conversations went on in his house.
And this: ”Indeed, it’s presumptuous to think that preschoolers have acquired a germ theory of disease from casual exposure to germ-related talk when it took scientists hundreds of years to discover germ theory”. Umm, yes. It certainly is. But who thinks preschoolers have a coherent theory of germs?
And what can you say about someone who writes, without the slightest wink or trace of irony, that “we quibble over whether the glass is half full or empty, when in reality it is always full of both liquid and gas?” Perhaps that was supposed to be a joke, but Shtulman is no Bill Bryson (see A Short History of Nearly Everything), and humour is not one of his tools. So the appearance of not one but two satirical research reports from The Onion, which he quotes for no obvious reason, seem startlingly misplaced.
I’m afraid Shtulman simply comes across as an earnest and dedicated teacher with a sincere desire to educate the world, but who is trapped in the bubble of his own psychological research. And for this reason, I believe he is simply wrong to place incorrect intuitive ideas as the core reason for the current state we find ourselves in. Here is a prime example of why:
He (also) incorrectly says that interbreeding and genetic engineering are the same thing. (They are not, and he needs to read his own chapter on inheritance – the first is something that could have occurred through evolution, but with a big helping hand to speed it along; gene splicing has never occurred spontaneously).
But anyway, following from that, he proceeds to disparage concerns about GMO as being non-scientific, and backs it up with a straw man example of a survey showing people are concerned about “DNA” in food.
Well, my concerns are not with GM corn being dangerous to eat – I simply don’t want anything to do with a multinational that is trying to monopolize the world’s strains of corn, patenting a monoculture that is resistant to toxic levels of weedkiller, and suing farmers found with their patented seed and even entire countries that decline to be part of the racket.
In short, I am wary of GMO because of a documented history of Bad Corporate Behaviour, and my knowledge about genetics, or lack of it, has nothing to do with it. It is this political/social component, and the rise of the Internet as a (mis)information medium, that is probably the most important aspect of science knowledge and science denial today.
Why is there so much antipathy to scientific and medical knowledge these days?
Why does stating “97% of scientists agree on climate change” convince many of just the opposite? (Shtulman seems to believe that this is a matter of science education not having promoted this fact enough!)
And how could more or better medical / statistical knowledge have enabled anyone to see through the vaccine – autism link? It’s not as if medical interventions have never had unforeseen side-effects. Shtulman writes, “those parents couldn’t wrap their minds around the idea of injecting their children with an inactivated virus.”
NO! The real problem was that Wakefield had an interest in the outcome, fabricated the study, the faked results were amplified through the bullhorn of the internet and social media, and happened to gel with certain parents’ (not-unjustified) antipathy to Big Pharma. Many of these parents were college-educated and liberal – the exact group that Shtulman says are least susceptible to incorrect scientific intuition, so that gives the lie to better education being the solution right there.
These are absolutely critical questions – ones that Shtulman even mentions in his introduction – and then utterly fails to address.
I know, I know, I shouldn’t be criticizing scienceblind for not being the book I thought it was, but honestly, I was really disappointed.
So read this book if you want a clear but wordy look at how children develop ideas about science, or if you want to educate yourself out of your scientific misconceptions – though I think you actually have to be quite science-literate to read it in the first place.
January 3, 2023
I translated a paragraph from this brilliant book:
البسترة
.
.
لن يصنف معظم الناس اليوم الحليب على أنه خطر صحي. بالنسبة لنا ، إنه شكل غير ضار من التغذية ، يُسكب فوق الحبوب أو يُستهلك مع الكورن فليكس. لم يكن الحليب دائمًا غير ضار. منذ قرن من الزمان فقط ، كان سببًا رئيسيًا للأمراض التي تنقلها الأغذية في العالم الصناعي. إن شرب حليب البقر ليس خطيرًا بطبيعته - فالبشر يفعلون ذلك منذ آلاف السنين - ولكنه يصبح خطيرًا إذا مر وقت طويل بين وقت جمع الحليب واستهلاك الحليب. يُستهلك الحليب عادة بدون تسخين ، والحرارة هي التي تقتل البكتيريا المتأصلة في طعامنا. يحتوي الحليب أيضًا على نسبة عالية من السكر والدهون ، مما يجعله وسيلة مثالية لنمو البكتيريا. إن الكمية الضئيلة من البكتيريا الموجودة في الحليب عندما يتم جمعه تنمو بشكل كبير مع كل ساعة تمر - وهي حقيقة بيولوجية لم يتعامل معها مستهلكو الحليب أبدًا حتى فجر الثورة الصناعية ، في النصف الأخير من القرن التاسع عشر.
لقد غيرت الثورة الصناعية المشهد الذي يعمل فيه الناس ومن ثم المكان الذي يعيشون فيه. مع انتقال سكان أوروبا والولايات المتحدة من القرى (حيث كان الناس يعملون في المزارع) إلى المدينة (حيث عملوا في المصانع) ، لم يعد الناس يعيشون بالقرب من الأبقار التي تنتج حليبهم. بدأ مزارعو الألبان في نقل الحليب بعيدًا عن مصدره ، مما يعني أن الناس بدأوا في شرب الحليب بعد جمعه بفترة طويلة.
هذا المزيج من العوامل - أن الحليب يستهلك باردًا ، وأن الحليب هو حاضنة مثالية للبكتيريا ، وأن الحليب كان يُستهلك بعد أيام من جمعه - أدى إلى انتشار العديد من الأوبئة الجماعية والأمراض المنقولة بالحليب في أوروبا والولايات المتحدة. وشملت الأوبئة تفشي مرض السل والتيفوئيد والحمى القرمزية وجدري البقر. كان الحليب في القرن التاسع عشر ، بحسب أحد الخبراء الطبيين ، "قاتلاً مثل شوكران سقراط".
تم حل مشكلة كيفية استهلاك الحليب بأمان بعد عدة ساعات (أو أيام) من جمعه في ستينيات القرن التاسع عشر بعملية بسيطة نسبيًا: تسخين الحليب لفترة كافية لقتل معظم البكتيريا في الداخل ولكن ليس لفترة طويلة لتغيير صفاته الفيزيائية أو القيمة الغذائية. عُرفت طريقة معالجة الطعام هذه ، التي ابتكرها لويس باستور ، بالبسترة. كانت العواقب الصحية للبسترة فورية وهائلة. كان الأطفال أكثر عرضة للإصابة بالأمراض التي تنتقل عن طريق الحليب في القرن التاسع عشر ، حيث كان الأطفال الذين يتغذون على حليب البقر أكثر عرضة للوفاة عدة مرات من أولئك الذين يرضعون من الثدي. بعد إدخال البسترة ، انخفضت معدلات وفيات الرضع في المراكز الحضرية بنحو 20 في المائ��.
.
Andrew Shtulman
Scienceblind
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
البسترة
.
.
لن يصنف معظم الناس اليوم الحليب على أنه خطر صحي. بالنسبة لنا ، إنه شكل غير ضار من التغذية ، يُسكب فوق الحبوب أو يُستهلك مع الكورن فليكس. لم يكن الحليب دائمًا غير ضار. منذ قرن من الزمان فقط ، كان سببًا رئيسيًا للأمراض التي تنقلها الأغذية في العالم الصناعي. إن شرب حليب البقر ليس خطيرًا بطبيعته - فالبشر يفعلون ذلك منذ آلاف السنين - ولكنه يصبح خطيرًا إذا مر وقت طويل بين وقت جمع الحليب واستهلاك الحليب. يُستهلك الحليب عادة بدون تسخين ، والحرارة هي التي تقتل البكتيريا المتأصلة في طعامنا. يحتوي الحليب أيضًا على نسبة عالية من السكر والدهون ، مما يجعله وسيلة مثالية لنمو البكتيريا. إن الكمية الضئيلة من البكتيريا الموجودة في الحليب عندما يتم جمعه تنمو بشكل كبير مع كل ساعة تمر - وهي حقيقة بيولوجية لم يتعامل معها مستهلكو الحليب أبدًا حتى فجر الثورة الصناعية ، في النصف الأخير من القرن التاسع عشر.
لقد غيرت الثورة الصناعية المشهد الذي يعمل فيه الناس ومن ثم المكان الذي يعيشون فيه. مع انتقال سكان أوروبا والولايات المتحدة من القرى (حيث كان الناس يعملون في المزارع) إلى المدينة (حيث عملوا في المصانع) ، لم يعد الناس يعيشون بالقرب من الأبقار التي تنتج حليبهم. بدأ مزارعو الألبان في نقل الحليب بعيدًا عن مصدره ، مما يعني أن الناس بدأوا في شرب الحليب بعد جمعه بفترة طويلة.
هذا المزيج من العوامل - أن الحليب يستهلك باردًا ، وأن الحليب هو حاضنة مثالية للبكتيريا ، وأن الحليب كان يُستهلك بعد أيام من جمعه - أدى إلى انتشار العديد من الأوبئة الجماعية والأمراض المنقولة بالحليب في أوروبا والولايات المتحدة. وشملت الأوبئة تفشي مرض السل والتيفوئيد والحمى القرمزية وجدري البقر. كان الحليب في القرن التاسع عشر ، بحسب أحد الخبراء الطبيين ، "قاتلاً مثل شوكران سقراط".
تم حل مشكلة كيفية استهلاك الحليب بأمان بعد عدة ساعات (أو أيام) من جمعه في ستينيات القرن التاسع عشر بعملية بسيطة نسبيًا: تسخين الحليب لفترة كافية لقتل معظم البكتيريا في الداخل ولكن ليس لفترة طويلة لتغيير صفاته الفيزيائية أو القيمة الغذائية. عُرفت طريقة معالجة الطعام هذه ، التي ابتكرها لويس باستور ، بالبسترة. كانت العواقب الصحية للبسترة فورية وهائلة. كان الأطفال أكثر عرضة للإصابة بالأمراض التي تنتقل عن طريق الحليب في القرن التاسع عشر ، حيث كان الأطفال الذين يتغذون على حليب البقر أكثر عرضة للوفاة عدة مرات من أولئك الذين يرضعون من الثدي. بعد إدخال البسترة ، انخفضت معدلات وفيات الرضع في المراكز الحضرية بنحو 20 في المائ��.
.
Andrew Shtulman
Scienceblind
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
July 19, 2019
There were parts of this that I really liked, and on the whole, it’s fascinating stuff. Sometimes it got a little cringy (e.g. there was an example that felt pretty fat shame-y and another that seemed to simplify and equate gender to chromosomal sex). And he got a bit self righteous with his “science is the only way to know the big T truth” thing. I just found it a bit heavy handed at times and think he didn’t really acknowledge other types of truly valuable knowledge that intuition or tradition can bring us. That’s very nuanced, and there wasn’t a lot of nuance in this book.
March 31, 2020
My summary: in the absence of learned knowledge, human intuition is an adaptation that helps us make sense of the world (a fundamentally flawed sense). Even when we are privy to the evidence-based models, we fall back to our (incorrect) intuitive models of reality when under stress. These are formed during our developmental years, and are merely suppressed, not erased, as we age. We use these in everyday reasoning, subconsciously, even if we think we know better.
As someone with little (read: no) background in psychology, I appreciated the straightforward progression of this book, starting with its thesis statement disclosed from the outset (quite literally in the title), through to its conclusion, citing evidence and building conceptually on previous topics. The author does supply the occassional personal anecdote (and Onion excerpt) to complement the research references (that occupy the majority of the text) to keep the material from being too dry. One detractor: several experiments performed in studies as supporting evidence are described that are less than straightforward to visually construct in your head - supplemental figures would have been useful for these.
As a side effect of the content usually having to do with correcting intuitive misconceptions, you will get a bonus refresher on a lot of high school/undergraduate-level science (some of which you may have found your knowledge of to be embarrassingly nebulous, if it's been a while. Obviously, I'm not talking about myself).
Mostly excellent. 4.5/5.
As someone with little (read: no) background in psychology, I appreciated the straightforward progression of this book, starting with its thesis statement disclosed from the outset (quite literally in the title), through to its conclusion, citing evidence and building conceptually on previous topics. The author does supply the occassional personal anecdote (and Onion excerpt) to complement the research references (that occupy the majority of the text) to keep the material from being too dry. One detractor: several experiments performed in studies as supporting evidence are described that are less than straightforward to visually construct in your head - supplemental figures would have been useful for these.
As a side effect of the content usually having to do with correcting intuitive misconceptions, you will get a bonus refresher on a lot of high school/undergraduate-level science (some of which you may have found your knowledge of to be embarrassingly nebulous, if it's been a while. Obviously, I'm not talking about myself).
Mostly excellent. 4.5/5.
October 3, 2017
A well-researched, interesting book, but it fails to live up to its thesis and praise. The author simply doesn't concentrate enough on adults and why they "deny science in the teeth of overwhelming evidence," as one reviewer puts it on the back of the book. There is too much emphasis on what children believe, especially with regard to concepts they clearly outgrow. For example, the book's aim is not furthered by giving page after page (with diagrams) explaining that small children believe that they live on a flat space in the center of a sphere called the earth, or that they live on a place called "the ground" while the "earth" is a sphere floating above them in the sky along with the moon and sun. Not only do children clearly outgrow this (in more than 99% of the cases), but it is actually quite obvious that children would hold such strange beliefs as they struggle to reconcile the facts that they live on a place--called the ground--that appears very flat to them, and that they are told that the earth is "round" ("spherical" or "shaped like a ball" would be better descriptions). This is just one of many examples that have probably nothing to do with why many adults are skeptical of science, ignorant of science, or even willfully opposed to science. It's really about a lack of education or quality education, and not just science education but an education in math, logic, and critical thinking.
However, I was entertained and shocked by people's conception of the world and science. The book is peppered with little scientific quizzes for the reader. I have no special science training--beyond high school science, I took one year of physics in college and have no other science education, and yet the answers to all of the quizzes were obvious to me even though at the end of each the author kept saying "most people believe the answer is..." Again and again, majorities had it wrong on basic facts and ideas. None of the intuitive theories that majorities of people believe about the world ever occurred to me (unless I have forgotten them since childhood) and most seem quite ridiculous.
Unfortunately we live in a country today in which the government is quite antagonistic towards and quite ignorant of science, and the policies being enacted are quite harmful to us all. I wonder if there is a book that explains why being a republican so often coincides with being anti-science and anti-logic.
November 14, 2017
Hmmm. Maybe it’s just the way Barry Abrams read the audiobook but it all comes across as high and mighty, science is everything preaching. Shtulman cites numerous studies, including his own, as he warbles on about how silly our intuition is and how important the scientific method is. He makes some fine points yet I feel that I could have just jumped right to the conclusion for the gist of the whole thing. Not a complete waste of time and certainly not the best book I’ve read this week.
Three stars for effort.
Three stars for effort.
July 27, 2017
To be honest, I probably would have given this book 5 stars regardless since this is a topic I've wanted explored in great depth for a long time. Frequently, in the works of great writers on science such as Pinker, Dawkins, Dennett, Tyson, and Krauss, you are briefly told that many of their concepts will seem non-intuitive due to certain features of our brains and development that make grasping such in-depth scientific notions quite difficult. However, there really hasn't been a full exploration as to just what those features and developmental processes are until this wonderful work from Andrew Shtulman.
Covering topics from matter, energy and gravity through climate change, evolution and illness, Shtulman gives very detailed explanations as to why our in-born and more juvenile intuitions as to how things work are woefully inadequate when it comes to proper study of much of the natural world. His chapters on illness and evolution are the most compelling but the entire work is worthy of very wide recognition. I would love the implementation of this material into general science courses ASAP, this would save so much time convincing "mature" adults to dump their pseudo-scientific notions and foster a generation of much more self-aware, critical thinkers. Perhaps this would help prevent non-scientific "objections" to vaccinations or senators bringing snowballs into the Senate to "disprove" climate change.
I would have loved for even greater coverage of physics and in particular particle-physics but perhaps this is such an obscure realm of study that it didn't merit mentioning in the author's eyes. Understandable, but given that this is the domain with the greatest explanatory power that deals with natural forces that are the most difficult to understand, some bridging of this gap would have served Shtulman's work well, at least in my eyes.
However, there is so much material here that is needed in modern education today and Shtulman himself sums this up beautifully towards the end of the work: "Our modern way of life is thoroughly dependent on science, so we must take obstacles to understanding science seriously. We must take intuitive theories seriously. We must create environments that help us become aware of those theories and craft instruction that helps us overcome them, in the classroom and beyond. Intuitive theories will be with us forever, as they are reinvented by every child in every generation. Let's not let the theories we construct as children constrain the opportunities we pursue as adults."
Covering topics from matter, energy and gravity through climate change, evolution and illness, Shtulman gives very detailed explanations as to why our in-born and more juvenile intuitions as to how things work are woefully inadequate when it comes to proper study of much of the natural world. His chapters on illness and evolution are the most compelling but the entire work is worthy of very wide recognition. I would love the implementation of this material into general science courses ASAP, this would save so much time convincing "mature" adults to dump their pseudo-scientific notions and foster a generation of much more self-aware, critical thinkers. Perhaps this would help prevent non-scientific "objections" to vaccinations or senators bringing snowballs into the Senate to "disprove" climate change.
I would have loved for even greater coverage of physics and in particular particle-physics but perhaps this is such an obscure realm of study that it didn't merit mentioning in the author's eyes. Understandable, but given that this is the domain with the greatest explanatory power that deals with natural forces that are the most difficult to understand, some bridging of this gap would have served Shtulman's work well, at least in my eyes.
However, there is so much material here that is needed in modern education today and Shtulman himself sums this up beautifully towards the end of the work: "Our modern way of life is thoroughly dependent on science, so we must take obstacles to understanding science seriously. We must take intuitive theories seriously. We must create environments that help us become aware of those theories and craft instruction that helps us overcome them, in the classroom and beyond. Intuitive theories will be with us forever, as they are reinvented by every child in every generation. Let's not let the theories we construct as children constrain the opportunities we pursue as adults."
books-to-return-to
June 28, 2017On Chapter 5, Motion
March 2, 2024
its worth learning abt intuitive theories and how they can impact us, but that could be lowkey explained simply by the last chapter
5/10
5/10
December 24, 2020
Was very focused on children's psychology and not what I thought it'd be
December 5, 2017
This book is about research done to uncover how we understand the world before formal instruction, and how those ideas tend to persist (causing a lot of problems). Most of the research centers around children, but as an adult, I still recognize how a few of these still trip me up. There are some examples though that I am convinced are just the result of poor questionnaires, polling, or the American Education System, because there's no 'psychological' reason for that category of ignorance. As an example, apparently 70% of adult respondents said yes, they would like a label indicating which food contains DNA. This number seems a bit high...
I absolutely love the topic of this book. It is just so interesting how we form intuitive theories about the world, without ever really knowing about them. It is also really important to understand them, both for educators and for researchers who should be aware of their own biases.
This book is also very well researched and written. It doesn't overburden you with information or digressions, and is structured in a coherent way that helps you make sense out of it all. Not everything in here might hold up to further research, but this book encompasses the current understanding of the field, and it's level of confidence adequately transpires. There is a lot of converging evidence on all the points made, and also alternative explanations that currently circulate.
I absolutely love the topic of this book. It is just so interesting how we form intuitive theories about the world, without ever really knowing about them. It is also really important to understand them, both for educators and for researchers who should be aware of their own biases.
This book is also very well researched and written. It doesn't overburden you with information or digressions, and is structured in a coherent way that helps you make sense out of it all. Not everything in here might hold up to further research, but this book encompasses the current understanding of the field, and it's level of confidence adequately transpires. There is a lot of converging evidence on all the points made, and also alternative explanations that currently circulate.
June 17, 2025
Scienceblind: Why Our Intuitive Theories about the World Are So Often Wrong by Andrew Shtulman –‚fascinating and empathetic’ according to The Wall Street Journal
7 out of 10
The Wall Street Journal thinks this is a great book...or maybe the ‚fascinating and empathetic’ hidesomething else, for i have read an article in The Economist that might suggest otherwise-after all, the latter is the nec plus ultra, creme de la creme, while the former has entered the stable of Rupert Murdoch, and hence it is in the same family with Fox, the ones that have done so much to bring about Trump, a potential apocalypse next year, fed tens of milions of Americans on lies (and they are expanding to Mexico and other places) and they are well depicted in Succession http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/8... thought The WSJ is a different species
The Economist took a look at the ‚hatchet job’, the new manner in which reviews are only praising the books that were once scrutinized, often demolished, but now, there are only sweet words to describe, however bland these could be...readers have to know that quite often (or always) when mild euphoria is declared, it just means that the read is boring, we have to look at the new vocabularies
In fact, i have an alergy for ‚fascinating’, becasue one CNN anchor is using it ad nauseam, and then Becky Anderson is not one of my favorite sources of information, the opposite is true, whenever i see the person, i switch channles...furthermore, i know the time slot, five to seven in the afternoon here, and avoid CNN altogeter then
The King of Comedy Kingsley Amis has written at least twenty five masterpieces, if you ask me, and among them you have The King’s English http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/07/t... quite a series of words have changed their significance, to the point where infamous used to be associated with infamy and not something you wnated to be, but now, it is just famous
Or it used to be, there are changes that are analyzed in the same The Economist, though not the same issue, in the Johsnon column, the journalist looks at how various groups have indictaed that they want different words, for instance, Deaf with a capital D is (or was, some months ago) to be used for those who had been addressed in a different manner, maybe something to do with a ‚deficiency’
‚Panta rhei is a simplified version of the famous Greek philosopher Heraclitus' teachings...It basically means, everything flows’ and the meanings are flowing, there is another sense for the word and it is the title of a psychology classic- Flow http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/f...
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the co-founder of positive psychology – he performed that magic trick with Martin Seligman – and in this book about Maximum Experience, he details research, tests, and then the rules that govern Being in The Zone – you are in control, nothing else matters (though in my experience, i do two things, like swim and then think of the rules of...Flow) there are clear Goals, it is an autotelic event, challanges meet skills, there is constant and imediate feedback and then time becomes plastic
Albert Einstein said ‚keep your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it feels like an hour, spend one hour with a beautiful girl, and it seems like one minute...this is relativity for you’- in the research on Flow, surgeons came out of difficult operations and asked to have lunch, only to be told that it is already evening, they had been in the oerating theater for many more hours than they thought, examples abund
A ballerina will dance on the satge for less than one minute, but it will feel like a whole evening, due to the inetnsity of the experience...trying to put in a few words about Scienceblind, tell that to the people that deny science and everything – however, the book is not about those, we all have a tendency to deny facts, or more often, think that this is the explantion for a phenomenon, when there is another
Like so often, the marvelous classic of psychology Stumbling On Happiness http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/06/s... by Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert comes to mind, it has many stories with what people belive that it will make them happy, when in reality, once the events take place, the future becomes the one needed for ecstasy, no exhilaration
Well, a brief one, wehn you move to California, a Caribbean island (though not Cuba, Haiti, or something similar) you experienc e a few months of enthusiam, but then, after the intial exuberance (this is the word that gave the name to the black tomcat that is now near the little pond, out in the garden, waiting to hunt some frogs, who is out on the terrace, at about seven in the evening, becasue the spouse is feeding him, and another six or seven of his mates, at eight, but before that, he scratches the french window and annoys her, hence the label Exube, from exuberant, or diavol aka diabolo, as she calls him) you start losing steam, and then Hedonic Adaptation settles in, and happiness is mostly gone
Nevertheless, this phenomenon has some advantages, for if we adapt to the good things and stop noting the palm trees, nice weather (which is replaced now by a steaming planet in much of the wolrd) then when something dramtic happens, we also tend to be affected for some months, but then retunr to the ‚base level of happiness’, unless we are in one of the places we ind hard to take in, such as unemployemnt, loss of a dear one or very loud noises, such as living near a major airport, or a goddamn nieghobour with a vicious, always barking animal
Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
7 out of 10
The Wall Street Journal thinks this is a great book...or maybe the ‚fascinating and empathetic’ hidesomething else, for i have read an article in The Economist that might suggest otherwise-after all, the latter is the nec plus ultra, creme de la creme, while the former has entered the stable of Rupert Murdoch, and hence it is in the same family with Fox, the ones that have done so much to bring about Trump, a potential apocalypse next year, fed tens of milions of Americans on lies (and they are expanding to Mexico and other places) and they are well depicted in Succession http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/8... thought The WSJ is a different species
The Economist took a look at the ‚hatchet job’, the new manner in which reviews are only praising the books that were once scrutinized, often demolished, but now, there are only sweet words to describe, however bland these could be...readers have to know that quite often (or always) when mild euphoria is declared, it just means that the read is boring, we have to look at the new vocabularies
In fact, i have an alergy for ‚fascinating’, becasue one CNN anchor is using it ad nauseam, and then Becky Anderson is not one of my favorite sources of information, the opposite is true, whenever i see the person, i switch channles...furthermore, i know the time slot, five to seven in the afternoon here, and avoid CNN altogeter then
The King of Comedy Kingsley Amis has written at least twenty five masterpieces, if you ask me, and among them you have The King’s English http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/07/t... quite a series of words have changed their significance, to the point where infamous used to be associated with infamy and not something you wnated to be, but now, it is just famous
Or it used to be, there are changes that are analyzed in the same The Economist, though not the same issue, in the Johsnon column, the journalist looks at how various groups have indictaed that they want different words, for instance, Deaf with a capital D is (or was, some months ago) to be used for those who had been addressed in a different manner, maybe something to do with a ‚deficiency’
‚Panta rhei is a simplified version of the famous Greek philosopher Heraclitus' teachings...It basically means, everything flows’ and the meanings are flowing, there is another sense for the word and it is the title of a psychology classic- Flow http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/f...
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the co-founder of positive psychology – he performed that magic trick with Martin Seligman – and in this book about Maximum Experience, he details research, tests, and then the rules that govern Being in The Zone – you are in control, nothing else matters (though in my experience, i do two things, like swim and then think of the rules of...Flow) there are clear Goals, it is an autotelic event, challanges meet skills, there is constant and imediate feedback and then time becomes plastic
Albert Einstein said ‚keep your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it feels like an hour, spend one hour with a beautiful girl, and it seems like one minute...this is relativity for you’- in the research on Flow, surgeons came out of difficult operations and asked to have lunch, only to be told that it is already evening, they had been in the oerating theater for many more hours than they thought, examples abund
A ballerina will dance on the satge for less than one minute, but it will feel like a whole evening, due to the inetnsity of the experience...trying to put in a few words about Scienceblind, tell that to the people that deny science and everything – however, the book is not about those, we all have a tendency to deny facts, or more often, think that this is the explantion for a phenomenon, when there is another
Like so often, the marvelous classic of psychology Stumbling On Happiness http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/06/s... by Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert comes to mind, it has many stories with what people belive that it will make them happy, when in reality, once the events take place, the future becomes the one needed for ecstasy, no exhilaration
Well, a brief one, wehn you move to California, a Caribbean island (though not Cuba, Haiti, or something similar) you experienc e a few months of enthusiam, but then, after the intial exuberance (this is the word that gave the name to the black tomcat that is now near the little pond, out in the garden, waiting to hunt some frogs, who is out on the terrace, at about seven in the evening, becasue the spouse is feeding him, and another six or seven of his mates, at eight, but before that, he scratches the french window and annoys her, hence the label Exube, from exuberant, or diavol aka diabolo, as she calls him) you start losing steam, and then Hedonic Adaptation settles in, and happiness is mostly gone
Nevertheless, this phenomenon has some advantages, for if we adapt to the good things and stop noting the palm trees, nice weather (which is replaced now by a steaming planet in much of the wolrd) then when something dramtic happens, we also tend to be affected for some months, but then retunr to the ‚base level of happiness’, unless we are in one of the places we ind hard to take in, such as unemployemnt, loss of a dear one or very loud noises, such as living near a major airport, or a goddamn nieghobour with a vicious, always barking animal
Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
September 22, 2022
While not perfect, this book really hit a few spots, especially the chapter on Evolution – this was the best, most thorough, and most correct explanation of evolution that I’ve ever come across, and it makes me wonder how my old, creationist self would have engaged with this a decade or two ago. I want to hand this chapter to a number of people and see what their reactions are. Shtulman explains in great detail what evolution is, and how common misconceptions get it wrong. A real treasure of a chapter.
Much of the book was, unexpectedly, about childhood development, but now it makes sense why he focused on that so much. He looks at how children perceive the world, and where and how those perceptions change (if ever) as the child develops into adulthood. This was fascinating, and his conclusion was food for thought – intuitive explanations of the world aren’t going away, no matter how much we improve with our education and knowledge – they’re a part of the first experiences that human (and many non-human) children have of the world. It’s simply not possible for children to build their own understanding of reality with full comprehension of, say, General Relativity built into their assumptions. They’re going to grab, touch, see and hear things, and construct theories from there. Now it makes sense why even scientists, when pressured into resorting to intuition, make some pretty basic errors. I think a scientific understanding of the world is a supplemental framework imposed on a pre-existing persistent framework built in childhood.
The book had some downsides though. While it seemed like Shtulman was being careful not to belittle other ideologies, there were a few times where his condescension came through, and I suspect it could be off-putting to the people who most need to read this book. Also, he didn’t offer any discussion about some of the benefits of traditional ways of knowing, such as traditional healing, learning, cooking, etc. He thinks that the only issue anyone could have with GMO food is that it’s ‘modified’ and somehow bad - the food, he argues, is just DNA and is manipulated in ways that food has always been manipulated, just at a dfferent rate, and is therefore ‘fine’. That’s not the issue that people have with GMO food. And while I won’t get into it here, I’ll mention that for someone who understands evolution so well, he should easily understand that ancient foods have passed the test of adaptation and selection, and people who ate unhealthy foods didn’t tend to pass on their genes or their practices. The rate at which modern GMO foods are being developed has allowed for no period of co-evolution with humans. We won’t know for centuries really which foods were actually ‘fine’ for us to meddle with. Dwarf wheat? Who really knows…. Roundup resistant corn? How would we know it’s ok for humans, without the empirical results of hundreds of generations interacting with it? I suspect Shtulman would have been one of those 20th century scientists who declared that baby formula was superior to breast milk, because it had only the 'necessary’ molecules, and no booby germs.
There were other issues too, but overall it was a valuable read, and I’ll probably go over some parts again. The strength of this book was in its explanation of evolution, and in the discussion of childhood development.
Much of the book was, unexpectedly, about childhood development, but now it makes sense why he focused on that so much. He looks at how children perceive the world, and where and how those perceptions change (if ever) as the child develops into adulthood. This was fascinating, and his conclusion was food for thought – intuitive explanations of the world aren’t going away, no matter how much we improve with our education and knowledge – they’re a part of the first experiences that human (and many non-human) children have of the world. It’s simply not possible for children to build their own understanding of reality with full comprehension of, say, General Relativity built into their assumptions. They’re going to grab, touch, see and hear things, and construct theories from there. Now it makes sense why even scientists, when pressured into resorting to intuition, make some pretty basic errors. I think a scientific understanding of the world is a supplemental framework imposed on a pre-existing persistent framework built in childhood.
The book had some downsides though. While it seemed like Shtulman was being careful not to belittle other ideologies, there were a few times where his condescension came through, and I suspect it could be off-putting to the people who most need to read this book. Also, he didn’t offer any discussion about some of the benefits of traditional ways of knowing, such as traditional healing, learning, cooking, etc. He thinks that the only issue anyone could have with GMO food is that it’s ‘modified’ and somehow bad - the food, he argues, is just DNA and is manipulated in ways that food has always been manipulated, just at a dfferent rate, and is therefore ‘fine’. That’s not the issue that people have with GMO food. And while I won’t get into it here, I’ll mention that for someone who understands evolution so well, he should easily understand that ancient foods have passed the test of adaptation and selection, and people who ate unhealthy foods didn’t tend to pass on their genes or their practices. The rate at which modern GMO foods are being developed has allowed for no period of co-evolution with humans. We won’t know for centuries really which foods were actually ‘fine’ for us to meddle with. Dwarf wheat? Who really knows…. Roundup resistant corn? How would we know it’s ok for humans, without the empirical results of hundreds of generations interacting with it? I suspect Shtulman would have been one of those 20th century scientists who declared that baby formula was superior to breast milk, because it had only the 'necessary’ molecules, and no booby germs.
There were other issues too, but overall it was a valuable read, and I’ll probably go over some parts again. The strength of this book was in its explanation of evolution, and in the discussion of childhood development.
September 23, 2021
Scienceblind is a fascinating book. Shtulman illustrates how our natural intuitions lead us down the wrong path in so many areas of our understanding. He spends six chapters showing how our intuitions are wrong about the physical sciences in areas like matter, energy, gravity, motion, the cosmos, and the Earth. For example regarding our intuitions about energy, he says, "heat, light, and sound are viewed as material substances rather than emergent properties of a system’s microscopic components." Another example are intuitions about the cosmos where "the earth is viewed as a motionless plane orbited by the sun rather than a rotating sphere in orbit around the sun" this is exactly where ancient ideas regarding a flat Earth came from, or, his discussion about the Earth, "where geological features like continents and mountains are viewed as eternal and unchanging rather than transient and dynamic." He then spends a bit of time talking about the history of plate tectonics and the science behind it.
He then spends another six chapters on our intuitions about the biological world delving into such areas as life, growth, inheritance, illness, adaptation, and ancestry. Illustrations include intuitions about illness where "disease is viewed as the consequence of imprudent or immoral behavior rather than the spread of microscopic organisms" and adaptation where "speciation is viewed as the linear process of direct ancestry rather than the branching process of common ancestry." The sections on inheritance, adaptation, and ancestry all delve into various aspects of biological evolution. Shtulman shows why, for example our intuitions about vitalism, essentialism, and teleology are fundamentally wrong and how they lead us astray.
He then spends another six chapters on our intuitions about the biological world delving into such areas as life, growth, inheritance, illness, adaptation, and ancestry. Illustrations include intuitions about illness where "disease is viewed as the consequence of imprudent or immoral behavior rather than the spread of microscopic organisms" and adaptation where "speciation is viewed as the linear process of direct ancestry rather than the branching process of common ancestry." The sections on inheritance, adaptation, and ancestry all delve into various aspects of biological evolution. Shtulman shows why, for example our intuitions about vitalism, essentialism, and teleology are fundamentally wrong and how they lead us astray.
October 17, 2017
I'd never really thought about why our gut instincts on the way things work in this world are often wrong. But when you consider how many hundreds of years (in many cases) it took scientists and thinkers to arrive at currently accepted answers, it makes sense. If the accepted science was intuitive, it would have been obvious even to them. This book covers theories of the physical and biological world and talks about not only what the common misconceptions are, but what types of teaching or tools it would take to overcome them. Many teaching methods for math and physics only get students to know how to arrive at the answer, but not how to understand why the answer works. Shtulman makes a compelling case about why it's so important that we learn the why so that we can make informed decisions about policy that are grounded in reality.
It was interesting that some of the incorrect theories are so intuitive that even scientists themselves have trouble. There are chapters on evolution, GMOs, vaccines, illness, cosmos, etc.Why do we have two tides per day? Why does the moon's shape appear to change over the course of the month? What causes the earth's seasons? Your first instincts on those might be wrong. Did you know that the "disgust face" (scrunched nose and tongue sticking out) developed for practical reasons? All of this and more are in here.
It was interesting that some of the incorrect theories are so intuitive that even scientists themselves have trouble. There are chapters on evolution, GMOs, vaccines, illness, cosmos, etc.Why do we have two tides per day? Why does the moon's shape appear to change over the course of the month? What causes the earth's seasons? Your first instincts on those might be wrong. Did you know that the "disgust face" (scrunched nose and tongue sticking out) developed for practical reasons? All of this and more are in here.
February 20, 2019
A helpful guide to showing that we all see the world through imperfect lenses. These filters are constructed by our biases, intuition, childhood instruction, natural selection, etc. Schtulman starts of strong, with insightful examples as to why we very naturally and understandably view parts of our world incorrectly. For example, watch this (short) video of a feather and bowling ball fall at the same rate in a vacuum...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frZ9d...
How does it make you feel? Our intuition is often derived from our experience, and this is not something we experience day to day. If the bowling ball and feather fall at the same rate, does that mean they actually weigh the same? What is weight really? Our intuition often fogs or simplifies underlying truth.
The middle of Scienceblind gets less innovative and more anecdotal, using example after example of how kids are taught or naturally come to understand the world around them. However, the overarching theme is that however our modes of thinking and processing came about, they are ubiquitous across ages, expertise (to a significant extent), and cultures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frZ9d...
How does it make you feel? Our intuition is often derived from our experience, and this is not something we experience day to day. If the bowling ball and feather fall at the same rate, does that mean they actually weigh the same? What is weight really? Our intuition often fogs or simplifies underlying truth.
The middle of Scienceblind gets less innovative and more anecdotal, using example after example of how kids are taught or naturally come to understand the world around them. However, the overarching theme is that however our modes of thinking and processing came about, they are ubiquitous across ages, expertise (to a significant extent), and cultures.
September 19, 2025
What shines here is the development of abstract reasoning through early ages, the built in preferences and expectations found in experiments with toddlers and children and how sad the state of affairs in trying to educate people about rules that aren't intuitive to them (difficult and prone to return to original biases).
However the framing of the book isn't developmental psychology really, even though it relies heavily on that. It doesn't really set out to answer the philosophy of science question the title asks either - "why our intuitive theories are so often wrong"; we find out a lot about the how instead. Nor is it a very good guide on skepticism and the how to of avoiding such pitfalls and despite taking a stab at the political side of science education and misinformation, it doesn't have much to say about that either.
While the content is interesting the title doesn't really fit easily into any one intent of purpose, which makes it fall a bit short and become just a popsci "isn't this interesting" book. I think it'd have been a much better book with a stronger framework in any one of the directions it doesn't take.
However the framing of the book isn't developmental psychology really, even though it relies heavily on that. It doesn't really set out to answer the philosophy of science question the title asks either - "why our intuitive theories are so often wrong"; we find out a lot about the how instead. Nor is it a very good guide on skepticism and the how to of avoiding such pitfalls and despite taking a stab at the political side of science education and misinformation, it doesn't have much to say about that either.
While the content is interesting the title doesn't really fit easily into any one intent of purpose, which makes it fall a bit short and become just a popsci "isn't this interesting" book. I think it'd have been a much better book with a stronger framework in any one of the directions it doesn't take.
November 6, 2017
Occasionally I read a science book! This one's good. It doesn't do the "social media science" thing, blaming people and insulting people for their inability to grasp complex scientific theories. Shtulman's view is much more decent and much more scientific: he describes intuitive theories that are embedded in humans at birth, theories that are very difficult to get rid of, even after years of careful instruction. Each chapter takes a look at a different phenomenon-- the first half is about the physical sciences, the second half about biological-- and contrasts the correct, scientific understanding of the phenomenon with the incorrect, popular, intuitive understanding. Along the way we see lots of children failing, which is always a treat (i.e. "Draw a spherical earth"... Kid draws a snowglobe earth). It's repetitive but necessarily so. If nothing else, it's a great way for novices (of which I am DEFINITELY one) to re-educate themselves about the way the world ACTUALLY works.
October 16, 2021
Sure love this book--although I was listening to the audiobook--the reader is very good and keeps you interested all along. It is amazing all the stuff we really do not know about and we somehow think we do...it makes you aware of the simple fact that there is so much for us to learn, it really never ends.
Nice to see he was always running experiments with his own kids---amazing how it is kids think and the fact that we all were kids at one point or another--we used to think that way too. Sadly, life has to change us--if we let it. It is up to us to keep thinking like a kid and dare to keep it up but this time, aware of the limitless possibilities. Amazing how our brain develops and makes choices to store and explain science. Fuuny, whatever we think it is--we somehow end up believing it until something or someone proves us wrong or shows us how it is different.
Nice to see he was always running experiments with his own kids---amazing how it is kids think and the fact that we all were kids at one point or another--we used to think that way too. Sadly, life has to change us--if we let it. It is up to us to keep thinking like a kid and dare to keep it up but this time, aware of the limitless possibilities. Amazing how our brain develops and makes choices to store and explain science. Fuuny, whatever we think it is--we somehow end up believing it until something or someone proves us wrong or shows us how it is different.
October 19, 2017
When I first picked up this book, I didn’t expect there would be so much emphasis on what children believe and the misconceptions about science that children have. I was a science teacher for 35 years and I am probably more aware of children’s misconceptions about science than most, so much of this was not news to me. I did learn some interesting things from the section dealing with physics, “Intuitive Theories of the Physical World” (my background is in Biology and Chemistry) but I didn’t learn much from the section about “Intuitive Theories of the Biological World.” I would recommend this book to those who are interested in science, but would not recommend it for those who were science majors in college.
December 24, 2017
A very accessible and cogent look at how we develop theories of the world, and why they are really hard to change - even when we learn and know about science that contradicts them.
Shtulman gives lots of research examples that are trying to uncover mental models in physics, biology, chemistry. He also spends some time writing about how our everyday analogies reflect or maybe dictate the models - something I really got into when I was in school.
There's also some side-by insight here that we might apply to the ongoing social change struggles we see everywhere these days. The human brain is both wondrous and absolutely weird in some of its doings.
Shtulman gives lots of research examples that are trying to uncover mental models in physics, biology, chemistry. He also spends some time writing about how our everyday analogies reflect or maybe dictate the models - something I really got into when I was in school.
There's also some side-by insight here that we might apply to the ongoing social change struggles we see everywhere these days. The human brain is both wondrous and absolutely weird in some of its doings.
December 4, 2018
(I apparently took a hiatus from the end of October until early December. Time to get back to it…)
This book was totally different than what I expected. Chapters 1 through 10 seemed more like an introduction to the actual meat of the argument/book, and chapter 12 gave the best discussion of evolution that I have ever seen thus far. In the conclusion of the book, the "science blindness" was actually pointed out from the beginning, but some of the assumed conclusions from the first part really need a bit more emphasis!
Overall, I think it was a pretty good book, but it could've been better; and as I say, chapter 12 was excellent, and that alone made the whole book worthwhile! But I still don't know why individuals, ADULT individuals, STILL make themselves blind to reality!
This book was totally different than what I expected. Chapters 1 through 10 seemed more like an introduction to the actual meat of the argument/book, and chapter 12 gave the best discussion of evolution that I have ever seen thus far. In the conclusion of the book, the "science blindness" was actually pointed out from the beginning, but some of the assumed conclusions from the first part really need a bit more emphasis!
Overall, I think it was a pretty good book, but it could've been better; and as I say, chapter 12 was excellent, and that alone made the whole book worthwhile! But I still don't know why individuals, ADULT individuals, STILL make themselves blind to reality!
September 10, 2017
A must read for every elementary multi subject teacher!
Science and math are the least taught well subjects in elementary school. This one book gives educators the background knowledge and instruction to master these subjects in the classroom. For years there has been emphasis on the need to teach "hands-on" science and math without explaining to the teacher the "why" this is important. As a former sixth grade educator, I recommend this book for college credential programs and every teacher who cares enough to do a great job teaching science and math.
Science and math are the least taught well subjects in elementary school. This one book gives educators the background knowledge and instruction to master these subjects in the classroom. For years there has been emphasis on the need to teach "hands-on" science and math without explaining to the teacher the "why" this is important. As a former sixth grade educator, I recommend this book for college credential programs and every teacher who cares enough to do a great job teaching science and math.
January 30, 2018
This book has interesting content, and did raise a lot of questions about my own biases toward the world. The writing is mundane and deteriorated over the course of the book. Beginning had more interesting topics on common misconceptions, lots of examples and logical arguments. Last few chapters seemed stitched together to pad volume. I guess this mirrors readers’ fatigue over time too. Still worth reading especially if you are a superstitious person that always have a saying for everything. But then again if you are such person, you wouldn’t be interested in science.
September 27, 2017
Mind opening book about various scientific topics and how as adults, we have conceptual blindness to them. A great part of the book also tells how children rationalise scientific definitions within themselves (without schooling) and how their thought process is different from adults, how they associate their intuition to their observations of the world around them. Good read.
August 2, 2021
It's weird reading a book which talks about science errors (and conflates willing ignorance with misinformation) making them itself. It got started on the wrong foot for me when it claimed people eating raw milk cheese were ignorant of the science that suggests it's more dangerous - I think it's just because raw milk cheese tastes way better.
October 25, 2021
Shtulman lays out the cognitive biases and heuristic shortcuts that we all are subject to that's provided the false intuitions about how the world works, and how science clears away the smoke of how things appear on the surface. Recommended for anyone who thinks of a living. Politicians might enjoy it too.
May 9, 2021
I found this book interesting but it was too long and Shtulman didn't tie enough of his child psychology research into how intuitive theories persist into adulthood. I would recommend the introduction! I had fun with this book but it seemed a little unfinished and unedited.
October 5, 2023
A little redundant, and I am not totally sold on everything he says at the end, but this book is super interesting and really great for any future educators or people who like psychology or want to be more science literate in general.
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