Why do some people like science and others don鈥檛?
Steve Gisselbrecht, Boston, Massachusetts, US
People are incredibly complicated and a lot of factors affect what we like. In this case, one person might have had more inspiring science teachers early on in life. Or perhaps they saw more science-oriented TV shows growing up, or had a book read to them with a scientific fact that answered a question they had just been wondering about. Since our brains grow and change in response to our thoughts, this kind of accident can contribute a lot to how we think in the future.
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But people are also just different. 快猫短视频s who study personality have mostly settled on five major traits, or axes, that people differ along. They have been given different names, but we can call them curiosity, friendliness, conscientiousness, outgoingness and nervousness. There is , meaning that outgoing parents tend to have outgoing children more often than introverted parents do, and so on.
These traits could affect a person鈥檚 reaction to science 鈥� a more conscientious person might work harder to get answers, say, while a more nervous person could be unhappy about ideas that aren鈥檛 really settled 鈥� but curiosity seems like the strongest driver of a scientific mindset.
Curious people tend to seek out new things and more cautious people prefer the tried and true. I suspect that both exist as a result of natural selection. A group in which no one is willing to try new things will fail when conditions change or familiar foodstuffs become unavailable. But on the other hand, a group in which no one values familiarity and tradition will lose the knowledge of what is edible and what is useful, and waste a lot of time and energy reinventing the wheel.
Marilyn Lott, Front Royal, Virginia, US
Sixty-five years ago, girls were told, 鈥渄on鈥檛 take these subjects: mechanical drawing, motor mechanics, advanced mathematics鈥�. That rubric became far less common by the 1970s.
Terry McDonald (graduate of Mirboo North high school, Australia, 50 years ago), Maidstone, Kent, UK
A high level of curiosity about the world around them.
It is also worth pointing out that science encompasses a vast array of subjects. A person who is interested in analysing fossils might be as different from someone who models fluid dynamics in pipes as they are from someone who studies languages 鈥� Ed
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