People not interested in science?

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In summary, the conversation discusses the lack of interest in science and math among high school students and the general population. The speakers suggest that it may be due to the difficulty and imagination required in these subjects, as well as the societal pressure to focus on more "normal" interests. They also touch on the restriction of science and education, which may have started with the Manhattan project. The conversation concludes with a reminder to not judge others for their lack of interest in certain subjects and to focus on one's own interests.
  • #36
Dash-IQ said:
Show people the awesomeness of science, and they will love it.
Explain it for the sake of understanding of how the world works not to pass a final or a midterm and they will love it.I loved physics because it's to me the language that explains how the world works... When I was in HS. I hated it because of the school treating it as a tool of testing only, not an amazing opportunity of enlightenment. I started to gradually study and experiment the theories I studied in class(if I could afford building them), and then get more attracted to it.

This is what made me want to invest time into physics and math and biology and chemistry because we learn about how the world works and WHY it works to me that is so fascinating.

To add to this I am trying currently to get kids interested I talked to the principal at my HS and he is currently ok'ing the idea of a small rocketry club which I think is awesome.
 
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  • #37
Dash-IQ said:
Show people the awesomeness of science, and they will love it.
Explain it for the sake of understanding of how the world works not to pass a final or a midterm and they will love it.

I admire your optimism, but am not impressed by your naiveté. You think others think the way you do. They don't.
 
  • #38
You know how the things you love literally leave a good taste in your mouth? I guess science doesn't taste very good to the people you speak of.
 
  • #39
FreeMitya said:
You know how the things you love literally leave a good taste in your mouth? I guess science doesn't taste very good to the people you speak of.

Very true, nothing tastes better than bacon wrapped scallops ;) anyways I guess people can choose what they like and what they don't like even though I still don't understand why they hate science and math.

I wonder if its the actual math part like the equations and stuff or the abstractness because once you start getting higher and higher up in math it takes pretty abstract thinking to get questions.
 
  • #40
AdrianHudson said:
Very true, nothing tastes better than bacon wrapped scallops ;) anyways I guess people can choose what they like and what they don't like even though I still don't understand why they hate science and math.

I wonder if its the actual math part like the equations and stuff or the abstractness because once you start getting higher and higher up in math it takes pretty abstract thinking to get questions.
It would have been better if I had written "subjects" instead of "things." Oh, well.

Another part of the problem is that many people take longer to grasp math than others, so it is easy for them to become frustrated and resentful. (A banal thought, I know.)
 
  • #41
SteamKing said:
When was the last time you saw an erector set which had steel parts with all kinds of sharp edges and enough teeny-tiny screws and nuts to choke an entire pre-school?

The last time I was at ToysRUs. They still make these (or started making them again if they stopped at some point).

I bought one each of these for two different grandkids and the only thing that bugs me is that I bought them for grandkids I don't see very often.

It's occurred to me that I need one of these just for me!

(I have to admit that there is one other thing that bugs me about one of the grandkids. Last time I visited him, the car we built together a year earlier was still put together. For crying out loud! Take it apart and build something new! I might have bought it for him when he was a bit too young.)
 
  • #42
FreeMitya said:
It would have been better if I had written "subjects" instead of "things." Oh, well.

Another part of the problem is that many people take longer to grasp math than others, so it is easy for them to become frustrated and resentful. (A banal thought, I know.)

It would be interesting to have a survey, would you guys be interested if I made a survey and posted the results? The participants would be from my Highschool and it might help to see what is actually wrong with the education of math and science.

Adding on, I might have to get a bigger sample size then just my school maybe like 2 or 3 schools. Would be fascinating.
 
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  • #43
About a year ago I did physics demonstrations at a booth at my school, and there were other booths their biology geology and many others. i was their from 9-5 and it was a bunch of kids from grades k-10 or so. And our physics booth was always swamped with kids playing with the demos and watching the cool electricity and magnetism demos and gyroscopes. So what will these kids grow up to do? I think we could do a better job at getting physics in the open to at least get people aware.
 
  • #44
I know what is not the answer: Everyday Math. Awful stuff.
 
  • #45
TheOldHag said:
I know what is not the answer: Everyday Math. Awful stuff.

Define everyday math like multiplication, division and adding stuff like that ?
 
  • #46
Everyday Math, like the new math curriculum they are teaching kids now. The distorted and disconnected view of math comprised of silly handouts without any unifying theme other than circle and block games that make some educational theorist feel warm and fuzzy.
 
  • #47
AdrianHudson said:
Ok question, it seems to me that now a days people are not interested in science. In my high school just hate science and math and I don't understand why, so my question is why are people hating on math and science :(?

Faulty education system and shortsighted/bad teachers can demotivate students and make them hate science,maths etc ,i hated maths in my middle school but fortunately met a good teacher who was also a motivator than just a teacher ,later by high school maths became my favorite.
 
  • #48
I work in a quality control microbiology lab, I always give fun facts about astronomy and physics throughout the week(albeit the simple concepts I understand). The other day I was telling something about the speed of light and how everything we see across the night sky is from the past(pretty simple gesture). One or more people said, "why do we care about this useless information and I could careless." I was astonished a lot of chemistry/biology degree coworkers and no one gives a damn about how the world around them operates.
 
  • #49
BobG said:
(I have to admit that there is one other thing that bugs me about one of the grandkids. Last time I visited him, the car we built together a year earlier was still put together. For crying out loud! Take it apart and build something new! I might have bought it for him when he was a bit too young.)
Reminds me of me and my kids. When I was little, I had a microscope, and a slide kit, I'd make my own slides. I had a telescope. I had erector sets and tinker toys and (little) chemistry sets, my mom wouldn't allow me the really cool BIG ones I begged for every Christmas, she said I'd blow up the house.

So when I had kids, they had microscopes and telescopes and building sets, and biology sets. And they wouldn't touch them, had absolutely no interest. I bought them glow in the dark night sky books. Nothing interested them. Spawn became a computer whiz, (She's a computer scientist now) however Evo Child wanted to become a trial lawyer (since age 7). :cry: She's finally decided on becoming a psychologist.

You can take a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
 
  • #50
Evo said:
She's finally decided on becoming a psychologist.

:rolleyes:
You remember I told you I might steal you for a story?
...the character was a psychologist.
 
  • #51
Fred loves his microscope. We can hardly separate him from it. He doesn't actually use it because he just sits there in his mason jar. But boy, he really loves that microscope.

Fred.jpg


[Edit: holy crap, I thought this was "Random Thoughts" when I posted. I'm sorry.]
 
  • #52
collinsmark said:
I'm sorry.

You should be. You never told me about that website. And I thought you were just kidding when you wrote the 'mad variety' as your favourite area of science...thanks for the nightmares.
 
  • #53
I'll second the "why should they be?" sentiment. Math and science are taught terribly, by teachers who for the most part don't understand them. What they get in school isn't science. I knew a bunch of students who were memorizing what a beta biomite does when it attaches to a subdermal DNA receptor (of course I made that up...) to pass a test, yet couldn't tell me why the seasons change.

I also agree with WannabeNewton, as I do every time this subject comes up. I would prefer more people to know history than science myself. The occasional post by the "hard science" guy forced to take a humanities class taught by a radical communist revisionist professor who taught actual history (BRAINWASHING THE YOUTH!) is pretty depressing.
 
  • #54
collinsmark said:
Fred loves his microscope. We can hardly separate him from it. He doesn't actually use it because he just sits there in his mason jar. But boy, he really loves that microscope.

Fred.jpg


[Edit: holy crap, I thought this was "Random Thoughts" when I posted. I'm sorry.]

W-w-what is that thing...
 
  • #55
TheOldHag said:
Everyday Math, like the new math curriculum they are teaching kids now. The distorted and disconnected view of math comprised of silly handouts without any unifying theme other than circle and block games that make some educational theorist feel warm and fuzzy.

My daughter had a class with a text called Everyday Math. Horrible, horrible stuff. I was raised on *real* "new math". I have no idea what that stuff in her book was :cry:.
 
  • #56
lisab said:
My daughter had a class with a text called Everyday Math. Horrible, horrible stuff. I was raised on *real* "new math". I have no idea what that stuff in her book was :cry:.

Is this what you're talking about?

http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu

I live in the great white north so I haven't had an encounter with this "everyday math"
 
  • #57
I can tolerate people that have no interest in science (my wife for one :)).

It's those that openly slander scientists that I have a hard time dealing with. Especially in Australia, we seem to have a real anti-intellectual culture emerging in politics, where the more qualified you are, the less reliable your opinion seems to be (?!).

Claude.
 
  • #58
Claude Bile said:
Especially in Australia, we seem to have a real anti-intellectual culture emerging in politics, where the more qualified you are, the less reliable your opinion seems to be (?!).

Your not alone. Here in America half the country regards ignorance as a virtue.
 
  • #59
I think that people hate math and science because they don't understand them and it's not easy to understand math and science. If one understands (doesn't simply know formulation) at least one significant theorem in math he can't hate math. The work which one has to do on the way to the truth will always interfere with understanding of beauty of science.
 
  • #60
Cyril141795 said:
If one understands [..] at least one significant theorem in math he can't hate math.

I disagree. Most people are weird and not everyone thinks like you. There are people who have gone through a math degree, understood a theorem, shrugged about it, eventually decided they didn't like math because they just want to work hard and make money and sail around the world in their own sailboat, so they became market analysts where they are daily reminded that they hate math, but at least they only have to do it 9-5 now and only for ten more years before they retire and start sailing.
 
  • #61
Cyril141795 said:
I think that people hate math and science because they don't understand them and it's not easy to understand math and science. If one understands (doesn't simply know formulation) at least one significant theorem in math he can't hate math. The work which one has to do on the way to the truth will always interfere with understanding of beauty of science.

You must not have read the whole thread. Read post #37. It applies to what you have said.
 
  • #62
Pythagorean said:
Most people are weird and not everyone thinks like you.

Nobody will argue against it.

Pythagorean said:
There are people who have gone through a math degree, understood a theorem, shrugged about it, eventually decided they didn't like math because they just want to work hard and make money and sail around the world in their own sailboat, so they became market analysts where they are daily reminded that they hate math, but at least they only have to do it 9-5 now and only for ten more years before they retire and start sailing.

According to your words, I change my statement to "... he can't hate math unless he hasn't gone through a math degree", because if one doesn't hate math, he doesn't necessary like it so much to study it for four years and deal with it 8 hours a day for ten years. If I had to eat my favorite food for breakfast and dinner for 14 years I couldn't look at this food after these years of hell.
 
  • #63
lisab said:
My daughter had a class with a text called Everyday Math. Horrible, horrible stuff. I was raised on *real* "new math". I have no idea what that stuff in her book was :cry:.
I too have struggled with the "new math", since it does not seem to represent the math I learned 40 to 50 years ago. It seems math and science education has been dumbed down to the least capable.

I tend to like the dry, black and white texts of the 50's, 60's and 70's. I don't get the technicolor textbooks used in modern education in high school or introductory college/university courses.


In my experience, a strong affinity/appreciation for math and science falls to a minority of the population - perhaps a few percent. Specialty disciplines in math and physics/science fall to an even smaller fraction of the population.
 
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  • #64
Evo said:
When I was little, I had a microscope, and a slide kit, I'd make my own slides. I had a telescope. I had erector sets and tinker toys and (little) chemistry sets, my mom wouldn't allow me the really cool BIG ones I begged for every Christmas, she said I'd blow up the house.
Heh, heh - I had much the same, except I got the bigger chemistry set. My brother and I did lot's of experiments and made various toxic concoctions.

I also had various electronic (100-in-1) sets in which one built a variety of useful electronic circuits. I actually built a short wave radio, among various projects.

My brother and I each had a Meccano set (when we lived in Australia). In the US, we had Erector sets, which are similar to Meccano. Despite what the Wikipedia article mentions, one can disassemble a Meccano structure and build something else. We often combined the sets, which was problematic given some dimensional difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erector

http://www.erector.us/ - much more sophisticated than the set I had.

Erector was produced by A. C. Gilbert, which also made chemistry sets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.C._Gilbert_Company

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemistry_set
Several authors have noted that from the 1980s on, concerns about illegal drug production, terrorism and legal liability have led to chemistry sets becoming increasing bland and unexciting.
I remember this vividly, especially when university libraries around the US started removing certain books from public access.
 
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  • #65
Pythagorean said:
I disagree. Most people are weird and not everyone thinks like you. There are people who have gone through a math degree, understood a theorem, shrugged about it, eventually decided they didn't like math because they just want to work hard and make money and sail around the world in their own sailboat, so they became market analysts where they are daily reminded that they hate math, but at least they only have to do it 9-5 now and only for ten more years before they retire and start sailing.
9 AM to 5 AM?


"I am not interested in it / I hate it because I don't understand it" is certainly a relevant factor - or at least something I heard a lot.
"I am not interested in it and I understand it" happens as well, but less frequent I think (okay, there is an obvious connection between interest in science and future attempts to gain more understanding, so this doesn't say much).

Astronuc said:
I also had various electronic (100-in-1) sets in which one built a variety of useful electronic circuits. I actually built a short wave radio, among various projects.
Same here :).
 
  • #66
Preferences are subjective. Building interest and choices are non-linear. However, It can be manipulated by a whole lot of factors and stimulus but at the end of the day. It's all about viewpoints and decisions despite of how everyone is thinking. Besides 'why' always ends up as a personal preference and indefinite as supposed to 'how' (culture, upbringings and so on).

I tried ideas of religion, spirituality and ID. And It was helpful for a moment but none gave me the same satisfaction as scientific methodologies and math does.^^
 
  • #67
It's funny what can influence us when we are young. I had an art teacher who taught us how to make balsa wood aeroplanes and we had a competition flying them on the playing field. Jump forward 6 years and I was flying solo after gaining a local scholarship. I don't think it would have happened without that teacher!
 
  • #68
Jilang said:
It's funny what can influence us when we are young. I had an art teacher who taught us how to make balsa wood aeroplanes and we had a competition flying them on the playing field. Jump forward 6 years and I was flying solo after gaining a local scholarship. I don't think it would have happened without that teacher!
In the Renaissance there was no clear distinction between art and science. After the discovery of perspective everyone had to be conversant with geometry. That made artists eminently suitable for assignment to architectural projects. And architecture required mechanics.
 
  • #69
zoobyshoe said:
In the Renaissance there was no clear distinction between art and science. After the discovery of perspective everyone had to be conversant with geometry. That made artists eminently suitable for assignment to architectural projects. And architecture required mechanics.

Yep, he must have been a Renaissance man. He had us carving bars of soap too. I did a Kermit the Frog.
 
  • #70
Jilang said:
Yep, he must have been a Renaissance man. He had us carving bars of soap too. I did a Kermit the Frog.
So, you're now a pilot AND a herpetologist?
 

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