Many of my students had done manual work before college. Generally but not always men; experienced in carpentry, forklift operation, roofing, more—they were almost always deeply insightful, rigorous thinkers. They had experience in physical systems that gave ungameable feedback.
The responses to this tweet are wonderful, and affirm what I know to be true.
I wrote about this last year, and have just opened up the post for all to see. Here is an excerpt:
patreon.com/posts/23061015
I wrote about this last year, and have just opened up the post for all to see. Here is an excerpt:
patreon.com/posts/23061015
We get feedback from the physical world that we cannot refute with smart comebacks. We cannot change the outcome by changing someone’s mind about what they think happened. What happened happened. Does the light turn on, is the corner square, are there leaks?
When I was a child, my father taught me to build fences.
In college, @BretWeinstein and I designed and built a walk-in terrarium for lizards, as well as a desk and a bookcase, both of which we still have.
In grad school, I learned to lay tile from my next door neighbor.
In college, @BretWeinstein and I designed and built a walk-in terrarium for lizards, as well as a desk and a bookcase, both of which we still have.
In grad school, I learned to lay tile from my next door neighbor.
@BretWeinstein My father grew up on a pig farm in NE Iowa, got a scholarship to Notre Dame, and became a computer scientist. He sometimes referred jokingly to himself as a “lil ol’ country programmer,” while working in LA, London, SF. His science brain was formed on the farm.
@BretWeinstein Humans are born to ask questions, to seek patterns, to, in short, be scientific in our approach to the world. Many of us have that drummed out of us by family or school—“science” is taught as a litany of facts, rather than as a process by which we discover what is true. /end
