Unpopular Science 240512

A week-full of links you shouldn't share

Personal science requires an open mind, which leads us occasionally to topics and ideas that can cause you trouble if too many people find out.

This is a short collection of ideas and links this week that are probably best kept under wraps.

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Don’t pay others to think for you

Evolutionary Biologist Heather Heying on Growing up is hard to do or “Do not pay others to do your thinking for you”. An excellent expression of what a real scientist does when confronted with facts denied by her peers. Quoting Emmanuel Kant:

“It is convenient to be immature! If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual advisor to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not make any efforts at all. I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresome job over for me.”

She lists several positions she once held strongly but changed her mind once she realized that she was simply repeating what others had told her.

Read the rest of this post for links to some other ideas that might require you to change your mind.