The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity

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There are two risks this post makes me wonder about, though. First, what are your rules about performing interest? As someone with comparatively little expertise as a talker (Cronon would almost surely not see me as liberally educated), I have made a conscious effort to make my interest visible in conversations, but even after decades of this it doesn’t come naturally. What might the consequence of an interest that, although genuine, strikes our students as performed or inauthentic?

The Importance of Being Interested by Robin Ince | Waterstones

Every chapter introduces a "mindf***" concept from the world of science (largely cosmology) and prompts the reader to muse on its implications for the big questions of life through a series of humorous vignettes and dialogues. It encourages you to adopt science not just as a means to an end, but as a religion that can bring depth and inspiration to your life. While there's no explicit atheist agenda, it does assume that the reader - like the writer - is interested in gaining the comforts of faith through science. In and of itself, the attitude is admirable and the reasoning sensible, but I find some passages, in which faith and science are presented as competing forces, to be rather one-dimensional. Progress through these phases requires an environment that supports individual pursuit of interests. For example, a school field trip to an art museum can foster a student’s developing interest in art. As individuals progress through these developmental phases, their connection to the object of interest becomes more stable and generalizable. Interest development begins in a specific situation, but by the time those interests are well developed, individuals make conscious choices and pursue their interests autonomously ( Renninger & Hidi, 2016). Indeed, as interest deepens across these four phases, individuals become increasingly aware of their own interest, as an important part of themselves (e.g., consider themselves Monet enthusiasts).

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Thoman DB, Smith JL, Silvia P. The resource replenishment function of interest. Social Psychological & Personality Science. 2011; 2:592–599. doi: 10.1177/1948550611402521. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar] This book consist mostly of reflexions around astrophysics - not science in general. The author also occasionally reflect on faith and religion. in other words, the title is slightly misleading. I appreciate your pointing out the wonderful benefits of what becomes second nature to us as writing center tutors—that being interested is part of what brings joy to our work.

How the Power of Interest Drives Learning | KQED

Robin Ince, as most readers will know, is a comedian who began with little knowledge of science but developed an interest and has now presented over 100 episodes of The Infinite Monkey Cage with Prof. Brian Cox on Radio 4. In The Importance Of Being Interested, he reflects on his and others’ responses to discoveries in science, using the very considerable knowledge he has gained combined with the humility of a non-expert, to try to understand what some of these ideas mean to people. These people include a wide range of scientists, astronauts and the like who have deep knowledge of the subjects, and also ordinary non-scientists. It’s a fascinating, thoughtful and entertaining read. In this book, there's a whole chapter on how the mind works, complete with memory distortions, cognitive biases and false assumptions. Robin seems entirely happy to frame the world through the distorting filter of his BBC bubble, never once realising that the water in which he swims doesn't reflect about 50% of the population’s view of reality. The underlying message is that the world would be much better if everyone saw the world like Robin. Perhaps it would, for all I know.But it’s so important to keep a curiosity when it comes to science. It is everywhere whether we like it or not. In our lives, in what we do, in what we are. It can be an amazing thing when that spark for science is relighted and something I’m very grateful to the Infinite Monkey Cage podcasts for, which Robin Ince also hosts (would recommend!). Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at all. Ince is a long-time BBC host, so it should be quite natural that somebody spending so much time in the liberal elite echo chamber would accept much of what is written in the Guardian as received wisdom, be an outspoken advocate of globalism and generally have very little time for any view that wasn't openly leftist. Really? Even today, within a given country, let alone around the world, lust and jealousy, never mind the structures around them, can vary an awful lot. Would an Egyptian marriage be so very recognisable to us, or ours to them, when our own relationships are strange enough to each other to keep Channels 4 and 5 in large chunks of regular programming?

The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific

Open-ended curiosity—being interested—not only has the power to motivate the writer I take an interest in, but also has a salutary effect on me. It takes me out of myself and my project and my discipline, and, most importantly, reminds me that “interesting” is not a quality that resides in something, but rather that being interested is a capacity I have. It’s a capacity we all have, and can cultivate. If we practice being interested, we can become more flexible thinkers and more effective tutors. The pedagogical power of open-ended curiosity Many people think science is for ‘others’. For people with an Einstein level IQ and those who were born with a quantum physics book in their hand. But science is everyone’s. Robin really goes a long way to show that and this book is beyond perfect to rekindle a curiosity in science. It can enrich your life and how you think, and can be nothing but a benefit to those who retain their curiosity about the world and the universe through science. Parents and educators can also promote the development of kids’ interests by demonstrating their own passion for particular subjects. A study of 257 professional musicians, for example, found that most important characteristics of the musicians’ first teachers (and, of course, parents are often kids’ first teachers) was the ability to communicate well—to be friendly, chatty, and encouraging—and the ability to pass on their own love of music, through modeling and playing well. Try sharing your own personal interests with young people through casual conversations, hands-on demonstrations, and special trips. Appropriately interesting. There are an almost daunting number of interviewees but, while it very often makes you stop & think, this is not a difficult book. The comedian Robin Ince, in his role as co-presenter of the popular science show The Infinite Monkey Cage with Prof Brian Cox, styles himself as “the stupidest person in the room… not always good for the ego but very good for my education”. In The Importance of Being Interested he gathers together conversations with authors and astronauts, neuroscientists and quantum physicists. This is not to impart what he has learned as much as to celebrate the meaning and humanity of science as a discipline. In so doing Ince makes profound – and funny – reflections on our tiny lives in a massive universe. Small Things Like These

Thanks Michelle, it’s terrific to see how the thread of (cross-disciplinary) curiosity leads into the creation of the CHE-Writing Center writing retreat at the Arboretum in November. It’s genius. The place, too, affords so many qualities for a writing retreat. I’m left wondering, too, whether the retreat produced unanticipated collaborative writing projects or even people trying out different genres for presenting their work?

The Importance of Being Interested | Robin Ince - NetGalley The Importance of Being Interested | Robin Ince - NetGalley

In a sense, that searching for connection and common ground is one of the main threads running through the book. Often, I loved it, as when Ince tweaks the nose of human exceptionalism by not only detailing but relishing our demonstrably close kinship not just to apes, or even other higher life, but with organisms right down to the level of yeast. Elsewhere, though, it can occasionally lapse into a false and cloying universalism. I adore the idea of an archaeologist proposing in front of a picture of a pharaoh and his bride, because these were people who had pledged to be together for eternity, and she wanted that same commitment. And maybe Egyptian love poetry really is impressively sexy, though we're told rather than shown as much. But then we get the point this is used to illustrate: "Just as the laws of the universe lead to the principle of uniformitarianism, so the principles of human lust and jealousy show that being human throughout time has not been so very different, simply because we didn't have smartphones and sandwich toasters." This isn't a science textbook, though occasionally there are big concepts being explained that will still have you scratching your head, but conveys how science can (and should) be for everyone. The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity by Robin Ince - Signed EditionThis post rings so true with my work in the high school library of an independent school for 25 years. Assisting high school juniors to be interested and curious about their own current issue research paper for government class requires my own patience and curiosity. Some of them are genuinely amazed to discover my interest in their chosen topic, while others definitely benefit from my questions which require them to reflect, reorganize and redefine their topic. I have not thought of my work in exactly the way you described Michelle but on a good day I would hope that I would be able to use much of what you discuss in your post. Thank you for the inspiration to be interested! There is no such thing as a stupid question from an outsider because it may very well be that question helps solve the problem. Blurb: Robin Ince abandoned science at secondary school, bored by a fog of dull lessons and intimidated by the barrage of equations. But, twenty years later, he fell in love with it and now he presents one of the most popular science podcasts. Every year, he meets hundreds of the world's greatest thinkers. I'll start by saying I like Robin Ince, he's a great co-host on Infinite Monkey Cage, and his intelligence and humour are normally engaging. Unfortunately, his book on being interested, just wasn't, well, interesting. But the improvisational part of tutoring—which is to say, the fun part—involves being interested: being curious about the student, their project, their discipline, the guidelines and constraints they’re working with, and what we each might learn or realize in the course of our conversation. For me, the best conferences—and they aren’t rare—are those in which I’m learning something that is of no practical use to me, something unrelated to my own scholarly work or to tutoring pedagogy. Something that’s just interesting. Being interesting and being interested “Bookcase, Ruth Mendez Home, New York, New York, 2000.” Photo by Susan Carr. In documenting the homes of people who had lived in one house for forty years or more, Susan, my aunt, had to cultivate an open-ended curiosity about and interest in whatever she might find in each home she photographed.