4 ms·

I don't know, I think its ok to just tell someone that its out of their own grasp to understand the thing at hand and leave it at that. Giving someone a surfac

I don't know, I think its ok to just tell someone that its out of their own grasp to understand the thing at hand and leave it at that. Giving someone a surface level "understanding" ultimately marks them as an idiot in the topic at hand because they will go on to parrot their useless understanding for what purpose?

HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
I think it depends on the topic. Of course there are always going to be pop-sci magazines trying to explain things like quantum physics to the layman (as if scientists themselves really understand it), so no way to avoid this, but maybe not a lot of value either, even if people enjoy thinking they understand something. For simpler and more accessible topics though, like the examples I gave, I do think there is value in teaching partially-correct simplifications. For one thing, you have to start somewhere, so if some partial understanding is what sparks some kid's interest into pursuing the sciences, then that is a good thing. Maybe more importantly(?), given that most people won't be going into science-based jobs, is just having some base level of scientific literacy, especially in a world (particularly the USA) where religious belief and conspiracy theories, rather than rational thought, seem to be in danger of dominating society.
- petsfed 2y ago
  I agree with you on just about everything you wrote, except the following passage which neatly sets up the widespread conspiracy theories and erroneous religious beliefs that currently plague our civilization. >trying to explain things like quantum physics to the layman (as if scientists themselves really understand it) There's this common misconception that physicists somehow don't understand quantum mechanics. The problem with quantum mechanics (and a whole host of other experimentally-supported theories) is that they describe things so completely removed from our everyday experience (and indeed, occur in regimes that human beings have never experienced even indirectly until the last 100 or so years) that our everyday intuition is wrong every time. But if you understand the math of quantum mechanics, and you understand how the experiments relate to the math, then you understand how quantum mechanics works. Its not actually that complicated, its just weird. There are ~1900 PhDs in physics awarded every year, so certainly, tens of thousands of people across the world do understand how it works. Now, if you're going to quibble and say "do the scientists understand what spin really is?" then congratulations, you've just reinvented Humean skepticism, I guess human knowledge reached its maximum extent in 1748.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
    > But if you understand the math of quantum mechanics, and you understand how the experiments relate to the math, then you understand how quantum mechanics works. Its not actually that complicated, its just weird. OK, but is that really understanding, or just an ability to crank the handle of the model and make a prediction? How should we interpret what is going on? What to make of observational wave function collapse, or long-distance quantum entanglement (which seems completely at odds with our understanding of space and time)?
    - pas 2y ago
      it's not black and white. we understand plenty! (eg. QED, semiconductors, lots of quantum optics, etc.) and then there are more murkier areas (strong forces, QCD, Higgs) and then there are the untamed beasts that eat their young and season it with Nobel laureates (fundamental questions, structure of the electron, SUSY, things beyond the standard model)
    - petsfed 2y ago
      I'm too much an instrumentalist to give you an unbiased answer. My view is that, as it pertains to any theory, the ability to make reasonably accurate predictions within a given region, and reasonably accurately describe the region where those predictions are correct is understanding. I don't believe our knowledge is complete, because the universe is effectively infinite, so there's room for effectively infinite combinations and permutations of phenomenon even within our understanding. But when we encounter something that contradicts our understanding, that doesn't mean we didn't understand anything we experienced before. It just means that our overall understanding was incomplete.
antognini 2y ago
There's a clip from a short documentary about Richard Feynman in which the interviewer asks him to explain what's going on when you try to push two magnets together head-to-head. Feynman basically says that he could tell you a story like "there are rubber bands pulling the magnets together," but it would be a lie and that if you really want an explanation you have to learn the physics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8
- peteradio 2y ago
  Spare me your petty questions! They spring from a brain too meager to comprehend my reality. Now taste my power!
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  That's a nice clip. I think his description of the nature of explanations is relevant here though. Most phenomena, that one might like explained, or wish to understand, aren't as irreducible (at least in terms of things familiar to the questioner) as the fundamental forces! In terms of education, explaining things at one level of reduction, even if there is more that could be said, meaningfully increases the knowledge of the student (and allows them to ask the next question, should they be interested). This really isn't the same as an analogical "explanation" that in fact explains nothing.
  - pas 2y ago
    the important thing is to give people a model, not just tell them a fancy story (that they can repeat later without it helping them) of course, it's easy to say that and hard to come up with good but simple models on the spot, but people don't gain knowledge by learning opaque phrases (that's how we got the whole "quantum woo" epidemic a decade or two ago)

HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago

I think it depends on the topic. Of course there are always going to be pop-sci magazines trying to explain things like quantum physics to the layman (as if scientists themselves really understand it), so no way to avoid this, but maybe not a lot of value either, even if people enjoy thinking they understand something. For simpler and more accessible topics though, like the examples I gave, I do think there is value in teaching partially-correct simplifications. For one thing, you have to start somewhere, so if some partial understanding is what sparks some kid's interest into pursuing the sciences, then that is a good thing. Maybe more importantly(?), given that most people won't be going into science-based jobs, is just having some base level of scientific literacy, especially in a world (particularly the USA) where religious belief and conspiracy theories, rather than rational thought, seem to be in danger of dominating society.

petsfed 2y ago
I agree with you on just about everything you wrote, except the following passage which neatly sets up the widespread conspiracy theories and erroneous religious beliefs that currently plague our civilization. >trying to explain things like quantum physics to the layman (as if scientists themselves really understand it) There's this common misconception that physicists somehow don't understand quantum mechanics. The problem with quantum mechanics (and a whole host of other experimentally-supported theories) is that they describe things so completely removed from our everyday experience (and indeed, occur in regimes that human beings have never experienced even indirectly until the last 100 or so years) that our everyday intuition is wrong every time. But if you understand the math of quantum mechanics, and you understand how the experiments relate to the math, then you understand how quantum mechanics works. Its not actually that complicated, its just weird. There are ~1900 PhDs in physics awarded every year, so certainly, tens of thousands of people across the world do understand how it works. Now, if you're going to quibble and say "do the scientists understand what spin really is?" then congratulations, you've just reinvented Humean skepticism, I guess human knowledge reached its maximum extent in 1748.
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  > But if you understand the math of quantum mechanics, and you understand how the experiments relate to the math, then you understand how quantum mechanics works. Its not actually that complicated, its just weird. OK, but is that really understanding, or just an ability to crank the handle of the model and make a prediction? How should we interpret what is going on? What to make of observational wave function collapse, or long-distance quantum entanglement (which seems completely at odds with our understanding of space and time)?
  - pas 2y ago
    it's not black and white. we understand plenty! (eg. QED, semiconductors, lots of quantum optics, etc.) and then there are more murkier areas (strong forces, QCD, Higgs) and then there are the untamed beasts that eat their young and season it with Nobel laureates (fundamental questions, structure of the electron, SUSY, things beyond the standard model)
  - petsfed 2y ago
    I'm too much an instrumentalist to give you an unbiased answer. My view is that, as it pertains to any theory, the ability to make reasonably accurate predictions within a given region, and reasonably accurately describe the region where those predictions are correct is understanding. I don't believe our knowledge is complete, because the universe is effectively infinite, so there's room for effectively infinite combinations and permutations of phenomenon even within our understanding. But when we encounter something that contradicts our understanding, that doesn't mean we didn't understand anything we experienced before. It just means that our overall understanding was incomplete.

antognini 2y ago

There's a clip from a short documentary about Richard Feynman in which the interviewer asks him to explain what's going on when you try to push two magnets together head-to-head. Feynman basically says that he could tell you a story like "there are rubber bands pulling the magnets together," but it would be a lie and that if you really want an explanation you have to learn the physics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0r930Sn_8

peteradio 2y ago
Spare me your petty questions! They spring from a brain too meager to comprehend my reality. Now taste my power!
HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
That's a nice clip. I think his description of the nature of explanations is relevant here though. Most phenomena, that one might like explained, or wish to understand, aren't as irreducible (at least in terms of things familiar to the questioner) as the fundamental forces! In terms of education, explaining things at one level of reduction, even if there is more that could be said, meaningfully increases the knowledge of the student (and allows them to ask the next question, should they be interested). This really isn't the same as an analogical "explanation" that in fact explains nothing.
- pas 2y ago
  the important thing is to give people a model, not just tell them a fancy story (that they can repeat later without it helping them) of course, it's easy to say that and hard to come up with good but simple models on the spot, but people don't gain knowledge by learning opaque phrases (that's how we got the whole "quantum woo" epidemic a decade or two ago)