[ExI] scieceblind

[William Flynn Wallace]

This book is just amazing.  I was never into developmental psych, and these
findings are just outrageous.

I have been mostly interested in cognitive errors, as you may have spotted,
and these are in children, but unlike the usual run of errors of adults.

Your son may be a bit too old to test for these things that I will be
sharing, but OTOH some of the intuitive theories were held by adults.

In fact, Ph. D. physicists showed evidence of the same errors found in
children, if you can believe that.

A surprise for me on every page.  Very lucid writing.  Method sections you
can easily skip.  Nature did not prepare us for this world - obviously.  We
learn, and we learn incorrectly.

This is worth your time.

In fact, I found myself in an error or two.  For instance, what he calls
the 'normal force' example consists of a table and book lying on it, and
says the table is exerting a force upwards on the book (or else the book
would be pulled through it by gravity, which I doubt in the extreme, as
both are very solid).  Upward force?  From where?

I also thought about something not in the book:  why does a helium balloon
rise?  Don't tell l me it's lighter.  My cat is lighter than I am and he is
not flying around.  The gas inside the balloon must be exerting pressure in
every direction, so the force cannot be from there.  Where is the force
here??

bill w
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