How to Become Unscientific in 3 Easy Steps - [Illustration]
Ice baths and cold showers are so often the situations in which I get strokes of insight. It happened yesterday too...
I could barely make it out the ice bath before I would lose the idea. It wasn't something of the magnitude of revelation, but it meant and it means a great deal to me. And putting it on digital canvas, sort-of organizes and commits it to memory.
I wrote something along similar lines a few days ago...
The idea here is that you can fit in this '1-2-3' into a whole host of scenarios, including: diets, nutrition research, ideologies of different flavors, conspiracy thinking, and so on and so forth.
I pushed this onto a few of my social media channels but I failed to mention how it hit me. It wasn't just like that - out of the sudden.
I was listening to an interview (from a famous radio program) in which the interviewee was saying something like:
'...for years we've been looking at cancer through the lens of genetics, but more recent research has shown than only about 5-10% of cancers are caused by genetics and that cancer is 90% caused by diet and lifestyle...'
Therefore, my inspiration...
And it's a shame, in my view, that such individuals, often researchers, choose to do it this way.
First of all, dismissing convention, even if it has its flaws, it's not the way to do it. You are dismissing the work of numerous good researchers.
Second of all, you are not aware of your own mental flaws. Most of us are not trained in critical thinking even though many of us say we are.
It takes much much much more effort than the mere awareness of your cognitive biases to be a rational thinker. It takes comfort with dismissing your own past ideas (in many cases), which goes against your ego and which also requires violating the consistency bias; additionally, there are a whole host of other barriers that so very few people can cross to become good thinkers. I will not diverge too much from the main idea, because I will probably develop this flow of thought into a more elaborate post.
Until then, don't be that guy, or gal!
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Cristi Vlad, Self-Experimenter and Author
Good point! There more a person is invested in an idea, the more difficult it is to discard it. Violating the consistence rule is probably more difficult than most people think. You see that all the time in science that a scientist has decided the 'answer' in advance.
well said!
Have never had a ice bath before,the idea of it is not very appealing i dont even like a cold shower,I dont think it would help me be creative.
it's not appealing to sane people :) thanks for re-steeming!
It certainly sounds insane to me,but if it works for you and you benefit from it,then why not
I never had an ice bath but I do take cold showers when I am too tired after working out at the gym and it really helps. But taking cold showers to get creative, I do not know I am not that creative any way.
This is very likely how the flat-earth movement has gained followers.
It refutes popular scientific knowledge, and it claims to have secrets that only the true believers can subscribe to.
They also use effective terms like "spinning ball" and other "ball" references to de-legitimize arguments about a spherical earth. Implying that anyone who thinks the earth is a "ball" is somehow child-like and misguided.
I don't know about the ice-bath thing, but perhaps punctuated stress events do something to the body that we're not aware of. Have you noticed any personal benefits physically?
that's how most conspiracy theories work :) cold exposure was not the focus of this write-up though. I use it to put myself into discomfort.
You piqued my curiosity, so I had to ask.
If you simply enjoy the process, I understand. I always dig for more information even when there may be none.
We stand on the shoulders of giants. As the big search engine often reminds us. But it is true.
How to Become Unscientific in 3 Easy Steps
1 Step - follow gardenofeden
2 Step - follow canadiancoconut
3 Step - follow teamsteem upvotes trail
:-P
Well I've heard a saying about repeating something until it becomes the truth - or that you and others belive it to be true even if you know it's a lie.
Nice piece! We are just as a human species incredibly good at pattern detection and if we have a prominent, leading pattern in our minds, we'll interpret sensory input accordingly. Trying to disrupt that and trying to disprove your own reasoning can be exhausting. But also lead to interesting insight.
Why is it that most people get ideas when they are in the bathroom?