8 July 2008 - essence of science

The principles of science are to pay attention to reality, to find reasons, and to double-check your answers. No wonder it’s so counterintuitive! All we’re naturally good at is the part about making up stories. Nevertheless, science can be taught if we dump that old guff about the experimental method and so on. Science can be presented as the cross of intuitive engineering (making things work, who cares why) with religion (the why of everything, no connection to reality) and multiple-choice tests (where the answer is determined by social expectation, but it’s important to double-check).