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Giant fish found + The case for more science & philosophy books for children

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Giant Fish Species Eluded Scientists For Centuries: Here's How It Was Discovered
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/212016...overed.htm

EXCERPT: The Hoodwinker Sunfish (Mola tecta), the first species of sunfish discovered after more than 100 years, has eluded scientists for nearly three centuries. Finding the giant fish was difficult because it lives a solitary life. It dives to eat in deep parts of the ocean, where people do not typically go. Marianne Nyegaard, of the Murdoch University in Australia, and colleagues, however, have finally identified and described this new species that they said has been hiding in plain sight for centuries....



The Case for More Science and Philosophy Books for Children
http://m.nautil.us/blog/the-case-for-mor...r-children

EXCERPT: During my career as a scientist and a philosopher I have written and edited, thus far, 14 books. Of these, seven are for the general public. Of those, only one (my very first one, as it turns out) was for children. The same picture emerges if one looks at the lifetime production of major science (and philosophy) popularizers [...] You might think aiming at a youthful demographic would be more appealing. Those early years, when curiosity runs high, are intellectually formative—it’s when we, my fellow educators, can hook young minds onto what philosophers call the scientific “image” of the world. [...] For this reason, I take it as obvious that we should write science and philosophy books for children and teenagers. The issue is not to turn every kid into a future scientist. [...] our society [...] does need citizens who are scientifically literate.

[...] It is very difficult to change the mindset of adult human beings, fraught as we are with all sorts of cognitive biases that entrench our pre-existing beliefs, inoculating them from any challenging argument or inconvenient truth. The result is an adult population, for instance in the United States, where 42 percent of responders to a survey from the National Science Foundation say astrology is “sort of” or “very” scientific. The numbers were the worst for the youngest section of the surveyed population (18-24 years old)—58 percent of them thought astrology had some merit, since they didn’t choose to describe it as “not at all scientific.” Moreover, Gallup found that three out of every four Americans believe in the paranormal. Formal education, especially college, can’t be the only answer to the problem. While it is true that the percentage of people who believe that astrology is “sort of” scientific goes down from 37 percent to 20 percent if we compare people without a high school diploma with those holding a Bachelor’s degree, 20 percent is still high.

So why is it that many science and philosophy popularizers—including yours truly—don’t make more of an effort to imitate the alleged counsel of Ignatius of Loyola? Again, I don’t have a technical study to draw from, but I can tell you about my personal experience: Writing well for children is really difficult....

MORE: http://m.nautil.us/blog/the-case-for-mor...r-children
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