Science can be glorious; it can bring clarity to a chaotic world. Every once in a while, a dolt drops a gem. We dont always know what we think we know. First, let mesay what I thinkcounterintuitiveisnt. 1. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. And when you are talking about something that (a)people reflect on and wonder about and (b) is not already well settled, then chances are pretty good that people have had multiple, potentially contradictory ideas about it. 4) When you don't have time to exercise or meditate, is when you need to exercise and meditate the most. 8. Maybe not. Dont trust your intuitions. Student cognition in response to intuitive and counterintuitive stimuli in the school science curriculum is not well understood. When treating someone badly makes him like you more instead of less, this is an example of something that is counterintuitive. Learn something new, even if it's stressful. Beyond the reach of formal theory, scientists develop educated guesses, hunches, and speculations based on their knowledge and experience. counter-intuitive definition: 1. Boyer originally did not precisely specify the number of expectation-violations that would render an idea maximally counterintuitive. So its counterintuitive to me to observe that we dont call the results of the double slit experiment counterintuitive.. 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. These questions make students aware of the inadequacies of their own thinking by exposing them to situations whose outcomes are inconsistent with what they would expect. I hate it and will tell you why in 5 minutes. Water sprayed into the cylinder condenses the steam, creating a vacuum. Science itself is counterintuitive. 3. Trigger freezing by stirring, or seeding with a small ice fragment. 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. Cow farts make methane, weve heard. Conclusion. 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. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. The concept of extinction took a while to sink in. Coke was originally supposed to make you smarter or something. And not only expanding, but expanding faster and faster. 9. Honestly, take a moment to consider what the natural environment and current technologies are capable of. Although if you didn't enjoy science classes at school, it's difficult not to be astonished by scientific facts as an adult. how we should evaluate counterintuitive claims. The fascinating story behind many people's favori Can you handle the (barometric) pressure? Here are just a few of those craziest facts out there! 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. In everyday language 'freezing' or 'melting' involves cooling or heating, but in science the term refers only to the changing physical . Cultures as diverse as the Babylonians, Han Dynasty China, and the Maya each developed sophisticated belief systems and mathematics to divine the purported influence of the planets and stars on people's personalities and events on Earth ( Boxer, 2020 ). In any science, though, you have areas of inquiry where there is not an existing theory that makes precise predictions. Freud might have been wrong in the details, but one of his main ideasthat a lot of our behaviors and beliefs and emotions are driven by factors we are unaware ofturns out to be correct. Counterintuitive definition, counter to what intuition would lead one to expect: The direction we had to follow was counterintuitivewe had to go north first before we went south. Use an ice/salt bath to supercool purified water in a clean test tube containing a clean thermometer. What?!? In this Letter, we report a counterintuitive example of relations between ZT and thermoelectric efficiency. This is technically false though. 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. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Answer (1 of 13): The world is hardly what it appears to be. In order to enjoy things you always need to think about the negative side of them. This is why it irritates me that we lie to undergrads about these things so much. Google is famous for its "20 percent time," the rough percentage of time that employees can dedicate to ancillary endeavors, research interests, or new ideas. Yet many psychological studies have reported findings that are absolutely counterintuitive and that seem illogical. Here you can ask any question you have about being a scientist, what's new in a field, what's going to happen in a field, or are curious about how we got to this point. Listed below are several particularly surprising findings from the field of psychology. University of Chicago cosmologist Michael S. Turner ranks dark energy as the most profound mystery in all of science.. A skilled writer can exploit the same mechanisms that lead to hindsight bias to set people up, andthen surprise! Get the best of Cracked sent directly to your inbox! Removal of dairy cows may reduce essential nutrient supply with little effect on greenhouse gas emissions (Phys.org). Intuitive version: If the good were free, consumers would want a lot, but producers wouldn't feel like making much. What does it mean when your boyfriend takes long to reply? Ever since the late 19th century, physicists have known about a counterintuitive property of some electric circuits called negative resistance. Similar misconceptions occur with freezing. At lower pressures, liquids boil at lower temperatures. There are human values, which are reliant on soft skills. To call someone an asshole is really bragging him up.". Like hot water freezing faster than cold. Introducing a delay function to our simple negative feedback loop will produce an unexpected oscillation (a counterintuitive behavior). What is 'counterintuitive'? Ask a student to pour a little cold water over the flask and read the resulting temperature. Students can reverse the experiment starting with frozen cyclohexane and warming it in a beaker of hot water, recording temperatures until it returns to about 15oC. the opposite of what makes sense. There are no "machine values.". 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. Test your knowledge - and maybe learn something along the way. Check out these facts that are just plain counterintuitive - you'll be surprised at some of the things people do every day! In the stock market, if you buy and stock for $50 and it goes up to $75 you make 50%. Counterintuitive means contrary to what seems intuitively right or correct. Milgram famously did that with his obedience experiments. Frequency: The definition of counterintuitive is something that goes against what you believe would be logical, or something that goes against common sense. Im reminded of the description of Steven Levitt as a rogue economist, a characterization that seems inappropriate to me, given that he received his Ph.D. from MIT, holds the title of Alvin H. Baum Professor at the University of Chicago, and has served as editor of the completely mainstream Journal of Political Economy. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Supercooled water can be found in clouds. What is the most surprising and counterintuitive finding in science that you can think of? Further rogue credentials revealed by Levitts online C.V. include an undergraduate degree from Harvard, a research fellowship with the American Bar Foundation, membership in the Harvard Society of Fellows, a fellowship at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a stint as a consultant for Corporate Decisions, Inc.. Most people who haven't studied physics still don't appreciate this. The influenza virus mutates so quickly that last years vaccination is usually ineffective against this years bug. The Aztecs slaughtered tens of thousands of people to inaugurate the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan; after sacredMayan ballgames, the losing team was sometimes sacrificed. The screen does not change. Source: Clari Massimiliano / Shutterstock.com. More dangerous than defying common sense, though, was Galileos defiance of the Catholic Church. When a liquid solidifies, bonds form between the particles (in this case, cyclohexane molecules). 99+% of the time they come back safe and sound, but that's less than 100%. 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. But if, after the experiment, you go back and erase the information about which slit each photon went through, then the interference pattern magically appears on the screen. Students who participated in the project reported that the access-on-demand online resource materials on counterintuitive demonstrations resulted in prolonged enquiry exploring science concepts, and were welcomed by participating classroom teachers. Nglish: Translation of counterintuitive for Spanish Speakers. and mturk didnt exist.) The counter-intuitive example that comes to mind for me deals with percents. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. While intuition and misconceptions continue to be of great interest to mathematics and science educators, there has been little research, much less consensus or even internal consistency, in statistics curriculum . 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. Plot temperature against time. The counterintuitive has its place. | How many (and whose) lives would you bet on yourtheory? Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced searchad free! All the good ones! You 100% wouldn't do it unless parachutes existed but because they do.people go skydiving and accidents happen. Please report trolls and incorrect/misleading comments. One way to fascinate, engage, arouse curiosity, motivate, and stimulate intellectual development in learning scientific concepts is to use counterintuitive questions. Does putting water in a smoothie count as water intake? The temperature will stay constant while the liquid solidifies. 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). Student cognition in response to intuitive and counterintuitive stimuli in the school science curriculum is not well understood. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. If I walk into it's solid, and I can't see through it. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. What are Halloween costume masks made from? . A counterintuitive proposition is one that does not seem likely to be true when assessed using intuition, common sense, 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. Examples of Counterintuitive in a sentence. Mastering a new skill means more stress now but more happiness later. The more familiar I get with special relativity the less strange it seems; I'm not sure if quantum intuition is attainable, but grasping why relativity is true is, I think, possible. 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. Frequency: The definition of counterintuitive is something that goes against what you believe would be logical, or something that goes against common sense. 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. Patients who received tirzepatide in a recent clinical study lost more than 20% of their body weight (52 pounds, or 23.6 kg). This might occur in instances where intuition changes with knowledge. Self-Sabotage - yourself when you find yourself mired in complacency. to ask them what their predictions would be about our main study in our 2008 paper (Vazire & Mehl, JPSP). The human genome (the genetic code in each human cell) contains 23 DNA molecules . Are they just keeping silent about conflicts of interest? Some temperature changes are counter-intuitive, as can be shown by simple investigations. Science seems to always challenge our intuitive understanding of the world. For me that brings up the question: what do we mean when we say something is counterintuitive?. After the previous experiment, students may predict that it rises. A Counter-Intuitive Approach to Making Complex Decisions. After the fact. Haven't checked it out but it makes perfect intuitive sense. Because chances are very good that they did. For example, with 1,000 variables, there are almost half a million (1,000x999/2) potential pairs of variables that might appear correlated by pure chance alone. . Sometimes different people having different ideas; sometimes the same person having different ideas at different times. For the past 151 years, sinceOn the Origin of Specieswas published, people have been arguing over evolution. Re: What are the most surprising and counterintuitive findings in science? 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. Some temperature changes are counter-intuitive, as can be shown by simple investigations. We are often fooled by the appearance and we miss the essence. 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. They can then test their ideas. If intuitions vary widely and so do results, across contexts and populations then we run the riskthat placing too much valueon counterintuitive findings will do more to incentiverhetorical flash than substantive discoveries. Melting sodium thiosulfate crystals, then cooling them to a state well below the melting point causes the supercooled liquid to freeze rapidly when a crystal of sodium thiosulfate is added, or the mixture is stirred. An example that comes to mind is deviancy training, as it seems like we would want to encourage youth becoming closer to each other and maintaining close relationships, but if these relationships are with youths engaged in delinquency, maintaining connectedness may entail the youth engaging in more of these behaviors. Science is amazing but it can also be frightening and mind-boggling at times. So let me get this straight: you're writing a report in which you are breaking the news to your clients that their goals have been wrong, and you wish to soften this news with some examples of how other people have been wrong? Answer (1 of 2): Counterintuitive scientific theories? I realize I'm preaching to the converted in this subreddit, but it's always worth remembering the difference to help understand others' view of science. But some microbes are evolving faster than we can find ways to fight them. Something that came up in another thread, the Mpemba effect i.e. Scientists, like other people, are tempted to fall into the trap of assumption and conformity to expectations. Wtf is going on down there!? I think it's one of those funny little things about the universe that one of the most ubiquitous substancesso much so that you sort of ignore it and take it for granted.is actually in some way one of the most complicated and oddly-behaving substances we know of. Continue boiling for at least 30 seconds while a student confirms that the thermometer reads about 100oC as expected. And besides, researchers are continuously learning new things. Testing hypotheses by experiment is supposed to be the hallmark of science. One thing I have to explain is why, if my idea is so great, people didnt consider it earlier. Here are 16 pleasant yet perplexing reminders that you may not know as much as you believe. It's Time for 20 Percent Talent. So the intuitive in counterintuitive could refer to the intuitions of experts. I've spoken before about my daily routines and how I like to exercise and meditate very day. The relationship between pressure and boiling point is also relevant in pressure cookers and when freeze-drying food. Counterintuitive, right? Here are four of the more surprising habits that, according to contemporary researchers, the most effective leaders typically share. Bond formation releases energy, counteracting the energy removed by the iced water. Read the temperature; a little below 100oC, so the water has stopped boiling. King Solomon, who could be considered an early scientist because of his powers of observation and analysis of natural phenomena like plants, beasts, birds, reptiles and fish (I Kings 4:33) and of geophysical cycles (Ecclesiastes 1:5-7), urged youth to gain knowledge, but to build it on the foundation of wisdom. When treating someone badly makes him like you more instead of less, this is an example of something that is counterintuitive. Ask them to predict what will happen to the temperature before carrying out the experiments. So true! And there's the first part of Newton's very first law: Bodies in motion remain in m. 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. Counterintuitive behavior means that actions intended to produce a desired outcome may generate opposite results. Why, then, did scientists in Singapore come to the conclusion that plastic bags are better than paper and cloth bags? Like everything you do just doesn't seem to work out? The more often you see a person or an object, the more youll like it. Galileo got more grief for the idea than Copernicus did. But astronomers do know that, thanks to these dark parts, the universe is expanding. The other thing about counterintuitive is that it makes the idea seem more impressive. No one can explain why anything happens down there, and there might not be an answer. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". I recall a quote that expressed this idea quite nicely. Of course, it does not have to be thatway. While intuition and misconceptions continue to be of great interest to mathematics and science educators, there has been little research, much less consensus or even internal consistency, in statistics curriculum development concerning the role of examples with counterintuitive . For example, it would sound odd to say some event in the Andromeda Galaxy caused a car to crash. Exercise: Listen to some assertions in the media that claim to be scientific. Seeing your assumptions of physical reactions are wrong by watching a golf ball hit a wall at 1000 frames per second and watching it compress and ripple is powerful. This is experimentally shown. I would say water expanding when it freezes. Supercooling can be linked to the previous topic. A red light for "go" and a . but it can also be frightening and mind-boggling at times. The details require careful consideration, but basically, were surprising. I prefer instead of valuing being counter-intuitive, to value counter-examples to the idea that all good things go together (or all bad things go together). Kim Scott, once the head of Google's AdSense and . Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. Bad news that cult recovery group just might be a cult, Theres a little bit of The Dude in a lot of Jeff Bridges performances, The English actor found the good side of being bad. We may have a greater capacity for abstract thought than chimps do, but were weaker than gorillas, less agile in the treetops than orangutans and more ill-tempered than bonobos. Calling it a "remarkable orifice," author Mary Roach said, "No engineer could design something as multifunctional and fine-tuned as an anus. 27. Was the double-slit experiment counterintuitive? Did the funder lean on the researchers to get a favorable result for dairy farmers? Astrology is one example of counterintuitive pseudoscience. 2.In Fig. Maybe; maybe not. Our cognitive failings are legion: we take a few anecdotes and make incorrect generalizations, we misinterpret information to support our preconceptions, and were easily distracted or swayed by irrelevant details. | READ MORE. Place a thermometer in a test tube of cyclohexane so that its scale remains visible from 0oC upwards. For example,when intuition systematically leads people to make consequentially bad decisionsit can be important to document that and understand why. Know that a sense of humor can be just as essential as understanding; you should also check out all these pretty funny science jokes--we we were not expecting these punchlines. The Big Bang was a quantum event and the universe at one time was as tiny as a quantum particle. How to use counterintuitive in a sentence. What if we talked about p-hacking the way we talk about experimentereffects? Cooling with cold water condenses the steam, lowering the pressure inside the flask. Professor White added, Production of some essential nutrients, such as calcium and many vitamins, decreased under all reallocation scenarios that decreased greenhouse gas emissions, making the dairy removal scenarios suboptimal for feeding the US population.. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. 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. Ground-breaking discovery finally proves rain really can move mountains (University of Bristol). What prevents the temperature dropping further until the liquid is completely frozen? counter-intuitive meaning: 1. 2 What is another word for counterintuitive? Clamp the flask and insert the bung, ensuring that the clip is open. "Parachutes make skydiving more dangerous.". Einsteins famous equation is certainly one of the most brilliant and beautiful scientific discoveriesbut its also one of the most disturbing. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. Whenever you are doing physics and all the sudden some entirely new deep topic in mathematics is automatically spit out. 3. Counter Intuitive Thinking Examples . Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. The consequences are already apparent:glaciers are meltingfaster than ever, flowers are blooming earlier (just askHenry David Thoreau), and plants and animals are moving to more extreme latitudes and altitudes to keep cool. darkmighty 7 yr. ago. counterintuitive counterintuitive Add to list Share. Adding crystals or stirring seeds the crystallisation process. If you were to drop another earth on itself it would appear to accelerate towards earth at 19.6 m/s2. Starting Early: The Benefits of Teaching Counterintuitive Concepts in Childhood. The initial boiling produces steam, flushing the air from the flask, which is then sealed. How to help students develop their practical skills. That seems pretty simple and counterintuitive. This can push students into a seeking explanation mode, setting the stage for discovery. Are counterintuitive findings more valuable? we of course used these results to show how counterintuitive our actual results were. Thinning and prescribed fire treatments reduce tree mortality (Phys.org). Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. This points out the need to test the statements of scientists. ARTICLES SCIENCE 16 FACTS THAT ARE JUST PLAIN COUNTERINTUITIVE 16 Facts That Are Just Plain Counterintuitive. 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). In a taste test, youre likely to have a strong preference for the first sample you tasteeven if all of the samples are identical. So the "intuitive" in counterintuitive could refer to the intuitions of experts. Stir gently, recording the temperature at known intervals until the temperature drops to near zero. Are you able to include anything visual? Most professors don't even seem to want to give a hint of the truth behind things. Perhaps the best example is quantum physics where many scientists believe that some quantum processes do not have any cause whatsoever. It is now salt water, which has a lower freezing point than fresh water. But if, after the experiment, you go back and erase the information about which slit each photon went through, then the interference pattern magically appears on the screen. A look at a few examples of counter-intuitive conclusions will illustrate these problems. 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. 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. Once all the liquid has frozen, no more energy is released, so continued cooling with iced water causes the temperature to start falling again. Nature: The anus is a sophisticated organ. Even in the 21st century, its quite possible to die of consumption. For example, you probably wouldnt say that the double-slit experiment was counterintuitive; youd say it falsified classical mechanics. Scripture said that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and the Holy Office of the Inquisition found Galileo guilty of heresy for saying otherwise. 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. 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. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission. The distinction between the two is clear (now). Even tuberculosis, the disease that killed Frederic Chopin and Henry David Thoreau, is making a comeback, in part because some strains of the bacterium have developed multi-drug resistance. So when we started reading about these "facts" that are supposedly counterintuitive, we just couldn't believe them. It made Einstein furious. It can be loosely stated that the particle that looped around and came back is not the "same particle" that left, since they have different topological character. Science can be glorious; it can bring clarity to a chaotic world. To freeze a liquid you must cool it down, but what happens to the temperature when the liquid solidifies? Advertising Notice Counterintuitive. Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/counterintuitive. Thats what scientists (both professional and citizen scientists) ought to be doing. Bobs never bought Christmas seals he told me he wouldnt know what to feed them, 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. (Very long termthe study is now enrolling the grandchildren of the original volunteers.) Every once in a while, a dolt drops a gem. Edit: for more information check out Schwarz's Quantum Field Theory and Topology. Some flowers, maybe, or mementos of your loved ones? Cognitive science. Get the best of Cracked sent directly to your inbox! So, one year you make 50%, the next you lose 33% and you think you're . Both processes require energy, which comes from the immediate surroundings. Sprinkle a little salt over the ice, and watch the temperature. 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. 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.
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