counterintuitive examples in science

Part of the problem is the mismatch between scientific terms and their common use. Third year of physics, and the first time I heard that, it boggled my mind, still kinda does, but I'm more used to it now. As the liquid freezes, the temperature will rise. At lower pressures, liquids boil at lower temperatures. Ultimately, everything in the universe will drift farther and farther apart until the universe is uniformly cold and desolate. The intuitive part points to the fact that when we label something counterintuitive, we are usually not talking about contradicting a formal, well-specified theory. Are counterintuitive findings more valuable? how we should evaluate counterintuitive claims. Some of the effects seen with superfluid liquid helium, but particularly the way that it can climb up out of a cup and drain down the sides. Newtonian mechanics implies that causal relationships are unconstrained by distance - at first glance this seems uncontroversial, but upon reflection its clear that this contradicts our folk notions of causality. Source: Clari Massimiliano / Shutterstock.com. It must be curtailed! Today, according to many biologists, were in the midst of a sixth great extinction. The relationship between pressure and boiling point is also relevant in pressure cookers and when freeze-drying food. Previously, she was a senior science editor at Smithsonian magazine. Don't be surprised if none of them want the spotl One goose, two geese. Simine Vazire has a great post contemplating how we should evaluate counterintuitive claims. The world will end in a whimper. Trying to argue that the different numerals represent the same number is allowed, but you need a reason to make that argument beyond "It leads to a nice, counter-intuitive result" and that makes . In our day-to-day lives we often speak of cause and effect as if there was a distance constraint. More dangerous than defying common sense, though, was Galileos defiance of the Catholic Church. 5. For me, its got to be the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment. Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection can be inspiring: perhaps youre awed by the vastness of geologic time or marvel at the variety of Earths creatures. 1. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Common sense does not always follow . Nature: The anus is a sophisticated organ. Place the clamp stand and inverted flask in a sink or trough. Even though the photos are already detected by the screen. Conclusion. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Was the double-slit experiment counterintuitive? 4. You can pay the farmer, or you can pay the doctor. "Parachutes make skydiving more dangerous.". Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. 12 Essential Life Tips That Are Counterintuitive But True. There's a whole lot about water we are still just learning now, and a lot of (fairly important) properties it has that are shared by only a few other substances in special circumstances. Send us feedback. A red light for go and a green light for stop would be highly counterintuitive, for example. Answer (1 of 13): The world is hardly what it appears to be. The most common example of Bernoulli's principle is that of a fluid flowing through a horizontal pipe, which narrows in the middle and then opens up again. information, these science educators strategically resort to examples and problems designed to defy students' intuitive thinking. Galileo demonstrated that balls of different weights land at the same time when dropped from a height, neglecting air resistance. Since it is necessary to keep heating in order to turn the solid into liquid or liquid into vapour, they assume the temperature must keep rising during the change of state. But big scientific discoveries are by nature counterintuitive and sometimes shocking. This is a "necessary evil" that is not considered controversial in the . (But its true in other sciences too, probably more than we appreciate .) The waters temperature is now above its new, lower boiling point, so it boils again. But other human foiblesthe desire to be accepted, time pressure, conflicts of interest (e.g., expectations of funding sources), interfere and can compromise that ideal. The more often you see a person or an object, the more youll like it. Boyer originally did not precisely specify the number of expectation-violations that would render an idea maximally counterintuitive. The details require careful consideration, but basically, were surprising. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". What are examples of counterintuitive? This counterintuitive approach applies also to minimalism. This re-boiling produces more steam, increasing the pressure, and thus raising the boiling point above the current water temperature, so boiling ceases. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. But other human foiblesthe desire to be accepted, time pressure, conflicts of interest (e.g., expectations of funding sources), interfere and can compromise that ideal. Natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires are often attributed by the media to global warming. He used a telescope to provide evidence for the heliocentric theory, and some of his contemporaries were so disturbed by what the new invention revealedcraters on a supposedly perfectly spherical moon, other moons circling Jupiterthat they refused to look through the device. Abstract. Counterintuitive behavior means that actions intended to produce a desired outcome may generate opposite results. Say youre about to die and are packing some supplies for the afterlife. For example, you probably wouldntsay that the double-slit experiment was counterintuitive; youdsay it falsified classical mechanics. What if we talked about p-hacking the way we talk about experimentereffects? Use an ice/salt bath to supercool purified water in a clean test tube containing a clean thermometer. ARTICLES SCIENCE 16 FACTS THAT ARE JUST PLAIN COUNTERINTUITIVE 16 Facts That Are Just Plain Counterintuitive. This might occur in instances where intuition changes with knowledge. Does the replication debate have a diversityproblem? I suppose this might still be categorized as trying to be counterintuitive, though I think it is more about striving for nuance. counterintuitive events is an effective way of engaging students in exploring science; such events motivate and involve students in solving problems with a high degree of creativity and critical thinking. 3. The reality is not so simple. Dont trust your intuitions. Running Amazon away in the name of poor people seems, To the couples and friends gathered for a night out under the glitter of a giant disco ball, this may seem, Taking a probiotic with supper or a bigger meal may appear to be, Post the Definition of counterintuitive to Facebook, Share the Definition of counterintuitive on Twitter. Most students, and probably most adults, assume that the interaction of salt and ice somehow causes a temperature rise, melting the ice. What?!? Removing energy from the surroundings causes cooling, so the temperature drops. Our finding highlights the mathematical inexactness of ZT . Pick one and examine the scientific grounds for the assertion. Below you, an entire other world operates, Many interesting behind-the-scenes bits have happened during the 20 years of telling tales about our favorite trailer-park residents. Reference-frame invariance of the speed of light. counter-intuitive meaning: 1. This doesn't really belong in this thread with the hard science examples, but I think it's a nice little verbal/logic trick to drop on people at a dinner party. There are human values, which are reliant on soft skills. Accessed 4 Mar. Our analysis reveals that student success in arriving at counter-intuitive . Once all the liquid has frozen, no more energy is released, so continued cooling with iced water causes the temperature to start falling again. First of all, you need to understand what does counterintuitive mean. Frequency: The definition of counterintuitive is something that goes against what you believe would be logical, or something that goes against common sense. So the intuitive in counterintuitive could refer to the intuitions of experts. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. IE throughout learning undergraduate quantum mechanics you hear "spin is a completely quantum mechanical phenomenon that doesn't exist outside of quantum mechanics." 2023. NTU Singapore scientists report that plastic bags could be eco-friendlier than paper and cotton bags in cities like Singapore, Removal of dairy cows may reduce essential nutrient supply with little effect on greenhouse gas emissions, Thinning and prescribed fire treatments reduce tree mortality, Protective effect of mandatory face masks in the publicrelevant variables with likely impact on outcome were not considered, Ground-breaking discovery finally proves rain really can move mountains, The Bible gives a good general principle: Test all things; hold fast what is good (. It's understandable why we get it wrong though because our intuition is based on living in a world with air resistance. Mastering a new skill means more stress now but more happiness later. Both these theories have been debated for decades because the measurements required to prove them are so painstakingly complicated. Don't ever get too comfortable with the status quo, always be willing to blow it up and start . Other low melting point compounds, such as ice, octadecanoic (stearic) acid or ethanamide (acetamide), can replace cyclohexane to show that constant temperature during melting and freezing is a general principle, not unique to cyclohexane. But they have not been informed of a long path of logical inference that tells us much more about the wall then our macroscopic senses do on a daily basis. Intuitively you would expect that the electrical resistance of a material would decrease as you decrease the temperature. Because chances are very good that they did. The thermometer scale from about 20oC upwards must be visible above the bung, so a long thermometer may be better. Ritual sacrifice is described in the Bible, Greek mythology and the Norse sagas, and the Romans accused many of the people they conquered of engaging in ritual sacrifice, but the evidence was thin. Our feeble minds can barely scratch the surface of existence, the cosmos, and everything. It's like trying to plunge your hand into a (hypothetical) fluid in liquid state and one that is starting to freeze and get denser. What is 'counterintuitive'? So its counterintuitive to me to observe that we dont call the results of the double slit experiment counterintuitive.. Typically, increasing the voltage in a circuit . Listed below are several particularly surprising findings from the field of psychology. Does putting water in a smoothie count as water intake? Clamp the flask and insert the bung, ensuring that the clip is open. After the previous experiment, students may predict that it rises. So the intuitive in counterintuitive could refer to the intuitions of experts. To many people it appears counterintuitive that eating more meals can help trigger weight loss. 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(first sentence from the conclusion: the results from these studies show that contrary to the strong intuitions of most, people are not always their own best expert.). Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Information about your use of this website will be shared with Google and other third parties. In any science, though, you have areas of inquiry where there is not an existing theory that makes precise predictions. Common sense does not always follow this route, and may include social biases, assumptions, and even a lack of facts. Although if you didn't enjoy science classes at school, it's difficult not to be astonished by scientific facts as an adult. When it solidifies, bonds form between the Na+ and S2O32- ions, releasing energy, which raises the temperature. You can accomplish more if you work less and sleep more. Once recorded on the screen it is no longer in superposition. Read the temperature; a little below 100oC, so the water has stopped boiling. Cow farts make methane, weve heard. There are too many reasons you might observe good with good: because of methodological artifacts like self- and informant-report bias, because of shared broad-spectrum causes, or because of common mechanisms (which is usually what youre looking for). As Simine points out, many people in psychology say that counterintuitive findings are more valuable so clearly there is an incentive to frame things that way. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, citizens are understandably confused about the benefit of face masks. To call someone an asshole is really bragging him up.". Identify whether they are grounded in hearsay, assumption, intuition or groupthink. Beyond a certain threshold of intelligence and skill, the efficacy bottlenecks quickly become your ability to communicate, get along with others, prioritize, focus, structure your thinking in advance, manage your time well, etc. When Copernicus proposed that the Earth and other planets instead orbit the Sun, his contemporaries found his massive logical leap patently absurd, says Owen Gingerich of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I like that point and I plan on borrowing it to use at some point in the future. Cognitive science. 1. (But its true in other sciences too, probably more than we appreciate.) The distinction between the two is clear (now). Since these researchers are moyboys, readers should take that into account. Students are familiar with everyday examples of freezing, melting and boiling, but are likely to think temperature always falls during freezing and rises during melting or boiling. What to take? Place a thermometer in a test tube of cyclohexane so that its scale remains visible from 0oC upwards. 1. A counterintuitive proposition is one that does not seem likely to be true when assessed using intuition or gut feelings. Pouring over further portions of cold water causes repeated re-boiling while the temperature gradually drops to around 30oC, or even lower. What are Halloween costume masks made from? But some microbes are evolving faster than we can find ways to fight them. This is why it irritates me that we lie to undergrads about these things so much. There are no "machine values.". This is a simple demonstration, but even post-16 students often struggle to explain the results. What possible sources of error can you identify? . And there's the first part of Newton's very first law: Bodies in motion remain in m. This is your Brain on Psychology This is your Psychology on Brain (a guest post by RobChavez), Data analysis is thinking, data analysis istheorizing. Mastodons may have been some of the earliest victims. Likewise, a series of short arti-cles on counter intuitive problems can be found First, let mesay what I thinkcounterintuitiveisnt. For the general public that have not had the opportunity to be exposed to the process of science, one of the most counterintuitive things is this: Logic and Common Sense are not the same thing. A counterintuitive proposition is one that does not seem likely to be true when assessed using intuition or gut feelings.. Scientifically discovered, objective truths are often called counterintuitive when intuition, emotions, and other cognitive processes outside of deductive rationality interpret them to be wrong. Are they just keeping silent about conflicts of interest? So the "intuitive" in counterintuitive could refer to the intuitions of experts. We have just begun to see the effects of human-induced climate change, and the predictions for whats to come range from dire to catastrophic. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. Our personal epistemology (philosophy of knowledge) is often based on intuition, which can be mistaken. These ideas, be it physics or biology, can be considered counterintuitive in that they often present themselves in ways that are counter to ones intuitive notions1). Sometimes it clearly is. Bell's theorem and general quantum weirdness. I am writing a report with some counterintuitive and surprising findings, and need some examples to show that our intuitive understanding can be totally wrong (So that they don't feel stupid for having pursued a goal without checking if their assumptions were correct). What is another word for counterintuitive? One can win or lose for the wrong reason. How can I stop being frustrated while reading? The definition of counterintuitive is something that goes against what you believe would be logical, or something that goes against common sense. Galileo got more grief for the idea than Copernicus did. The universe might be uncaused. You need some fancy equipment, like a thing that makes a cohesive beam of photons and a thing that splits a cohesive beam of photons, but other than that its not impossible to do in your home lab. Special relativity, then, is a perfectly reasonable and elegent way to formalize this notion. 10. This article and paper from the USDA Forest Service argues that wildfires and droughts have always been a part of California ecology, and that prescribed burns and forest thinning are best for preventing bark beetle damage that contributes to out-of-control fires. Thomas Jefferson saw mastodon bones from Kentucky, for example, and concluded that the giant animals must still be living somewhere in the interior of the continent. Coke was originally supposed to make you smarter or something. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Part of the problem is the mismatch between scientific terms and their common use. -Mark Crislip. The other thing about counterintuitive is that it makes the idea seem more impressive. To save this word, you'll need to log in. When we heard that Barack Obama had chosen to sleep on his decision to authorize the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, we were pleasantly . Many interesting behind-the-scenes bits have happened during the 20 years of telling tales about our favorite trailer-park residents. How could something so obvious be wrong? But you set it up in such a way that you can throw away the information about which slit the photon went through. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine But scientists have also believed rain can erode a landscape quickly enough to essentially suck the rocks out of the Earth, effectively pulling mountains up very quickly. If you were an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, youd have your servants slaughtered and buried adjacent to your tomb. Scientists have come to some surprising conclusions about the world and our place in it. It made Einstein furious. Teaching science through counterintuitive events is an effective way of engaging students in exploring science; such events motivate and involve students in solving problems with a high degree of creativity and critical thinking. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". Plot temperature against time. Fire individual photons through a double slit at a screen and put a detector at each slit. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Perhaps the best example is quantum physics where many scientists believe that some quantum processes do not have any cause whatsoever. The gauge shift comes from the particle looping around a topological defect (the magnetic field threading the plane, effectively making the space into a punctured plane), in effect changes the topological quantum number (electric/magnetic charge) of the particle, since the punctured plane is not homotopically trivial. A couple of coins for the ferryman? Why does salt cause the ice to melt? When thats your multiplier, you dont need much massa smidgen of plutonium is plentyto create enough energy to destroy a city. But big scientific discoveries are by nature counterintuitive and sometimes shocking. Removal of dairy cows may reduce essential nutrient supply with little effect on greenhouse gas emissions (Phys.org). Bad news that cult recovery group just might be a cult. When the Coen Brothers needed someone to show The Dude how to really roll, they could turn to only one man: Hall of Fame professional bowler Barry Asher, Below you, an entire other world operates. PBS space time on the quantum eraser https://youtu.be/8ORLN_KwAgs. So when we started reading about these "facts" that are supposedly counterintuitive, we just couldn't believe them. 99+% of the time they come back safe and sound, but that's less than 100%. In the liquid the atoms (or molecules) are all moving about, while in the solid, they are in nice neat rows. What prevents the temperature dropping further until the liquid is completely frozen? Kim Scott, once the head of Google's AdSense and . 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A heavier object does fall faster. Learn more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGXqFOO8utA. The Bible gives a good general principle: Test all things; hold fast what is good (I Thessalonians 5:21). He asked Lewis and Clark to keep an eye out for them. By clicking Accept All, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. For example,when intuition systematically leads people to make consequentially bad decisionsit can be important to document that and understand why. Its an adaptation of the traditional dual slit experiment (which in itself is a serious mindfuck) that really drives home just how messed up quantum entanglement really is. In fact, there are a lot of things that people do every day that defy all logic. 11. ~45 kJ/mol vs ~.08 kJ/molK (~8 kJ/mol to get from boiling point to freezing point at STP). Intelligence and skill level are subject to diminishing returns. The reality is not so simple. Its hard to tell fact from fiction when it comes to this particularly gruesome custom. Our feeble minds can barely scratch the surface of existence, the cosmos, and . Here are ten of the biggest threats to our . In 1948, the Framingham Heart Study enrolled more than 5,000 residents of Framingham, Massachusetts, to participate in a long-term study of risk factors for heart disease. However, the subjective nature of intuition limits the . 1.A schematic representation of the weighted fusion of evidence is shown in Fig. Environmental activists and vegans want to reduce the impact of beef production. Paleontologists have identified five points in Earths history when, for whatever reason (asteroid impact, volcanic eruptions and atmospheric changes are the main suspects), mass extinctions eliminated many or most species. Before repeating such claims, one should investigate funding sources. Exercise: Listen to some assertions in the media that claim to be scientific.

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