Review, Innocent Experiments
When asked if their work wasn’t sometimes boring, my two-person sample of scientists cried out at the same time, “It’s awful!” and “So tedious.” If science requires the curious wonder of a freewheeling child, it also requires the diligent recording, repetition, and prevision of a very uptight adult. Onion quotes a blog post from science educator Marie-Claire Shanahan on the way the children-as-scientist analogy breaks down: “Child-as-natural-scientist arguments tend to equate curiosity and exploration with the expert practice of science … Science isn’t just a grown up version of a child’s curiosity. While kids have the fertile beginnings, becoming a scientist requires that they learn and skillfully practice many abstract skills that are far from intuitive.”
Rachel Riederer, New Republic, November 29, 2016.