Comments on: The Human Brain Versus Science, Part Two http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/03/31/the-human-brain-versus-science-part-two/ Fri, 4 Jul 2008 04:44:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Richard Gayle http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/03/31/the-human-brain-versus-science-part-two/#comment-15786 Richard Gayle Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:05:45 +0000 http://www.cshblogs.org/cshprotocols/2008/03/31/the-human-brain-versus-science-part-two/#comment-15786 I think a major problem is that humans deal with a complex world by creating stories. Or we can call them Heuristics since we are scientists. As do many animals, we look for simplifying patterns. Most times this is quite successful and allows us to thrive. Sometimes this gets us confused, so that we see a streak when it is random. Or fail to understand compound interest. I think this gets to the controversy over at ScienceBlogs about the topic of framing. Many scientists have layered very complex heuristics (i.e. the Scientific Method or even peer review) over the normal ones in most people. This allows us to more accurately describe the natural world we find. But it often makes it more difficult to tell the important stories of science in ways that match those of others. without a similar overlay. This is important because research has shown that people really only retain information that already fits into their own heuristic patterns and ignore those that don't. That is why scientists who can cross this barrier, such as Sagan or Gould or even Myers, are so important. They can help translate the stories of science into those of others without a dramatic loss in the complexity we find. I think a major problem is that humans deal with a complex world by creating stories. Or we can call them Heuristics since we are scientists. As do many animals, we look for simplifying patterns. Most times this is quite successful and allows us to thrive. Sometimes this gets us confused, so that we see a streak when it is random. Or fail to understand compound interest.

I think this gets to the controversy over at ScienceBlogs about the topic of framing. Many scientists have layered very complex heuristics (i.e. the Scientific Method or even peer review) over the normal ones in most people. This allows us to more accurately describe the natural world we find.

But it often makes it more difficult to tell the important stories of science in ways that match those of others. without a similar overlay. This is important because research has shown that people really only retain information that already fits into their own heuristic patterns and ignore those that don’t.

That is why scientists who can cross this barrier, such as Sagan or Gould or even Myers, are so important. They can help translate the stories of science into those of others without a dramatic loss in the complexity we find.

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