This is really interesting, and linking in with some thinking I'm doing at the moment. Because I am/was a scientist, and I'm very much in with the "this side of that house is white" mentality, but one of the things that's putting me off about science is the lack of people skills and nuance around me. So I'm wondering if people who are less able to read bodylanguage etc are more likely to not make other assumptions. Because it does occur to me that when I jump to unwarranted conclusions, they are often snap judgements based on something about their behaviour or tone of voice or something (and sometimes those snap judgements are right on the mone.)
Anyway, before I encountered SiaSL, I learnt a joke about an astronomer, a physicist, and a mathematician, who are on a train heading up to a conference in the highlands of Scotland. They've never been to Scotland before. They look out the window and see a sheep. The astronomer says "Ah, Scottish sheep are black". The physicist says "That's an overgeneralisation, typical of your field. All we know is that this Scottish sheep is black". The mathematician says "I'm amazed at the assumptions you can get away with your fields. All we know is that this side of this sheep is black."
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zvi
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Date: 2008-05-14 01:56 am (UTC)Anyway, before I encountered SiaSL, I learnt a joke about an astronomer, a physicist, and a mathematician, who are on a train heading up to a conference in the highlands of Scotland. They've never been to Scotland before. They look out the window and see a sheep. The astronomer says "Ah, Scottish sheep are black". The physicist says "That's an overgeneralisation, typical of your field. All we know is that this Scottish sheep is black". The mathematician says "I'm amazed at the assumptions you can get away with your fields. All we know is that this side of this sheep is black."