Word: ScienceblindYou don’t know what you don’t know.

Word: ScienceblindYou don’t know what you don’t know.

  • Words Asher Ross
  • Photograph © Saul Leiter Foundation
  • Courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Etymology: The term was coined by cognitive developmental psychologist Andrew Shtulman as the title for his 2017 book Scienceblind: Why Our Intuitive Theories About the World Are So Often Wrong.

Meaning: It’s no easy thing to understand the world around us as it really is. We may think we know what causes rainbows, or the seasons, but when asked to explain, our supposedly scientific knowledge can evaporate. In the heat of the moment, we usually revert to intuitive theories.

Heat is a good example. Taking a bath on a winter’s day, we might imagine heat as a substance that is “escaping” from the tub. Those with a smattering of physics might think warmer molecules are flowing out of the water, while colder molecules from the air are flooding in. While these intuitive theories of ...

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