This article reminds me of a question one of my favorite teachers asked his classes. Are you learning to enrich your life or to avoid pain? What he wanted us students to question was our motivations for sitting in his class and taking notes and memorizing curriculum. Was it because we wanted to do what society tells us we need to do (get good grades, go to college, make a lot of money) or because we genuinely wanted to learn? Obviously the answer for the vast majority of student is the former. The same could be said of the scientists who operate differently outside the lab. Society tells them the right way to act inside a lab to avoid pain (ie the scientific method, control groups) but when they leave the lab they leave all the scientific stuff behind.
This article reminds me of a question one of my favorite teachers asked his classes. Are you learning to enrich your life or to avoid pain? What he wanted us students to question was our motivations for sitting in his class and taking notes and memorizing curriculum. Was it because we wanted to do what society tells us we need to do (get good grades, go to college, make a lot of money) or because we genuinely wanted to learn? Obviously the answer for the vast majority of student is the former. The same could be said of the scientists who operate differently outside the lab. Society tells them the right way to act inside a lab to avoid pain (ie the scientific method, control groups) but when they leave the lab they leave all the scientific stuff behind.