Skip to main content

Home/ All Things TOK/ Group items tagged ideas

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
anonymous

How Children Learn Language | Steven Pinker | Big Think - 0 views

bigthink.com/40321

children language human science Pinker chomsky

shared by anonymous on 15 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 15 Oct 12
     
    "Children are Hard-Wired with Universal Grammar Another important contribution of Chomsky to the science of language is the focus on language acquisition by children. Now, children can't memorize sentences because knowledge of language isn't just one long list of memorized sentences, but somehow they must distill out or abstract out the rules that go into assembling sentences based on what they hear coming out of their parent's mouths when they were little. And the talent of using rules to produce combinations is in evidence from the moment that kids begin to speak. "
anonymous

BBC News - 'Survival of fittest' is disputed - 1 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-11063939

evolution science survival of the fittest theory

shared by anonymous on 24 Aug 10 - Cached
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 24 Aug 10
       
      Scientific theories are always subject to future questioning.
  • The new study proposes that really big evolutionary changes happen when animals move into empty areas of living space, not occupied by other animals.
  • This concept challenges the idea that intense competition for resources in overcrowded habitats is the major driving force of evolution. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote What is the impetus to occupy new portions of ecological space if not to avoid competition?” End Quote Professor Stephen Stearns Yale University Professor Mike Benton, a co-author on the study, explained that "competition did not play a big role in the overall pattern of evolution".
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • However, Professor Stephen Stearns, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University, US, told BBC News he "found the patterns interesting, but the interpretation problematic".
  • It proposes that Charles Darwin may have been wrong when he argued that competition was the major driving force of evolution.
  • But new research identifies the availability of "living space", rather than competition, as being of key importance for evolution.
  • Max Cheng on 24 Aug 10
     
    Isn't this kind of like the reading we had...with the Uncertainty of Knowledge assignment? It talks about how science theories can be true because we believe them to be true, but because time changes and everything is different all the time, they are always easy to be proven wrong, and subject to change. That is like what you said about scientific theories being subject to future questioning. What we perceive to be an atom may not be what Socrates perceived as an atom, or some scientist from year 3000 perceives it. Science is always changing and therefore I agree that the laws that are made are always "refinable".
anonymous

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...07mind.html

education research Human Sciences psychology evidence

shared by anonymous on 09 Sep 10 - No Cached
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 09 Sep 10
       
      This is such a comment complaint of teachers, namely that students act, from year to year, as if they don't remember every even being introduced to something that the current year teacher thinks is review. Many grade level teachers begin the year thinking their predecessors in the previous year didn't do a good job preparing their students.
  • These findings extend well beyond math, even to aesthetic intuitive learning.
  • The finding undermines the common assumption that intensive immersion is the best way to really master a particular genre, or type of creative work, said Nate Kornell, a psychologist at Williams College and the lead author of the study. “What seems to be happening in this case is that the brain is picking up deeper patterns when seeing assortments of paintings; it’s picking up what’s similar and what’s different about them,” often subconsciously.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • But at the very least, the cognitive techniques give parents and students, young and old, something many did not have before: a study plan based on evidence, not schoolyard folk wisdom, or empty theorizing.
  • “With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material” when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.”
  • That’s one reason cognitive scientists see testing itself — or practice tests and quizzes — as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future.
  • Dr. Roediger uses the analogy of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, which holds that the act of measuring a property of a particle (position, for example) reduces the accuracy with which you can know another property (momentum, for example): “Testing not only measures knowledge but changes it,” he says — and, happily, in the direction of more certainty, not less.
  • “Testing has such bad connotation; people think of standardized testing or teaching to the test,” Dr. Roediger said. “Maybe we need to call it something else, but this is one of the most powerful learning tools we have.”
  • Motivation matters. So do impressing friends, making the hockey team and finding the nerve to text the cute student in social studies.
  • The more mental sweat it takes to dig it out, the more securely it will be subsequently anchored.
  • “In lab experiments, you’re able to control for all factors except the one you’re studying,” said Dr. Willingham. “Not true in the classroom, in real life. All of these things are interacting at the same time.”
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 09 Sep 10
       
      Perfect explanation of why the so-called "soft" sciences (Psych, Econ, Sociology, etc) are actually quite hard while the "hard" sciences (Physics in particular) are actually compartively easy!
anonymous

Is Economics a Science? - The American, A Magazine of Ideas - 0 views

www.american.com/...is-economics-a-science

science economics human science prediction falsification

shared by anonymous on 29 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 29 Nov 10
     
    "Economics aspires to be a science. But in this it does not succeed. Neither does finance. This despite the fact that there is an annual, optimistically named Nobel Prize in "Economic Sciences." Financial crises keep happening-the list is long. Could they be avoided if economics and finance were science? To paraphrase financial observer James Grant: science is progressive, but finance is cyclical. But why should this be? Do we not learn from experience? Does economic knowledge not increase? And how about having computers, vast amounts of data and information, and new mathematical models to guide lending and investing decisions?"
‹ Previous 21 - 26 of 26
Showing 20▼ items per page