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I had a conversation with one of the employees here at Duck and Decanter not long ago about expectations. At D&D food (sandwiches, soups and salads) is ordered at the counter and the order is marked on a brown paper bag along with your name. When the food is prepared your name is called at the cash register where you pay. I come here so often that most employees know my name and that goes on the bag before the order. Normally I eat vegetarian fare (my favorite is the Where’s the Beef but the Avocado sandwich is also good) but every once in a while opt for a pastrami on rye. That usually garners me a surprised look. The employee related how before he decided to cut down on salt he usually asked for two pickles. Now he only asks for one but still usually gets two. Unlearning what we humans learn to start with is difficult apparently.
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There was an interesting article related to learning in the Perspectives department of the 5/09 issue of Natural History (on the web here). The article is not available on the Natural History website so if you want to read it, you will have to visit your library or newsstand (if you can find one). The article titled ‘In Science We Trust’ focused on how our understanding of the world as infants effects our beliefs in such things as evolution. Paul Bloom, the author, (professor of psychology at Yale University) included some surprising facts in the article. The first was that we Darwinians are a minority in America. More than half of all Americans believe in creationism according to a 2007 Newsweek poll. Most of the rest conceded that evolution may be true but was (if so) guided by God. Those of us “pure” Darwinians came in a remote third. Another of Bloom’s eye openers was that infants learn at a very early age how the natural world behaves. For example, by the age of four months most children know that unsupported objects fall. Infants also learn that some people are more trustworthy (their opinions can be trusted more than that of other people). Most surprising, to me, was that according to opinion polls between 2001 and 2005 the United States was number 33 (out of 34) in percentage of people that believe in evolution. Only Turkey came in after us. Some of the 34 countries would be pretty far down on my list of modern scientific centers of learning. Places like Estonia, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Lithuania all have more than 50% of a populace that believe Darwin got it right.
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Professor Bloom makes the point that while children are natural born creationists (it is natural to assume that organized structures are created by an intelligent being). However, culture and learning influence human understanding of the natural world (and by extension, universe). How else can Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom (top five in polls – believing that theory of evolution is true) have more than 75% of their populations that believe in evolution as opposed to the United States’ poor showing.
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One of the reasons for the low proportion of believers of science in the United States is (according to Paul Bloom) is that in our culture we have a high percentage of citizens that have chosen to place more trust in religious leaders and politicians. This is another area where I am in a minority.
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Politicians are also reluctant to share knowledge available to them. Revelations about the debate on torture in the Bush administration remind me of Watergate and other political scandals reaching back to the earliest days of our nation. And then of course there are sex scandals for both religious leaders and politicians preaching morality. While there have been cases of scientists falsifying research results and being less than morally perfect, the numbers have been far fewer than scandals involving politics or religion. Most scientists eagerly share their knowledge. I think I’ll keep on trusting scientists.
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What other things learned as an infant have influenced my beliefs?