Science Documentaries for Youngsters? 383
An anonymous reader writes "My 7-year-old daughter is asking some interesting questions, such as, 'How did everything get created?' I've explained, in general terms, our family's non-religious views on the subject of creation and the Big Bang. I'd like to find some documentary videos geared to this age level that may explain better these concepts and theories. I've found a few PBS specials online - Stephen Hawking stuff - but they seem to be geared for young adults and older. Does anyone have recommended titles that might be better geared to children of this age bracket?"
Beginnings. (Score:4, Insightful)
www how things work dot com of course (Score:3, Insightful)
as for books, try the library
Just tell him what the scientists tell us (Score:2, Insightful)
That should put everything in the perspective a 7 year old can understand and not be anything less than our scientists told us. It just happened!
Re:Beginnings. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing that I know is this: (Score:5, Insightful)
The best thing that you can do IMHO is to take your daughter in hand and go find the answer. She will learn two things at a minimum: The answer to the question as best as it can be answered, the fact that you care to do that for her, and the methods you use to find answers. That last one is way more important than you might think.
I used to hate hearing the words "go look it up" but it did lead to me looking for a lot of things... and finding them. When she learns from you HOW to look for answers, hopefully she will never stop looking for answers as long as she lives.
I got one (Score:0, Insightful)
A golden opportunity (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Beginnings. (Score:1, Insightful)
Forget kids-oriented stuff. Provide adult science themed text and video and read and watch it WITH you child.
Planetarium Possibilities (Score:4, Insightful)
Check your local planetarium, if possible. They often have shows geared to younger children.
I took my niece (then about 6 years old) to one a couple of times after she showed interest in star-gazing. I think these days, she (now 9 years old) might be better than me at picking out constellations!
Tell her the truth.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Try to explain the difference between religion, fact, and theory. Then move on to children's versions of the "good books". Allow her to make her own decisions but stress that she's also allowed to change her mind.
Finally, go back to point one; nobody knows. She's no better than someone who adopts an alternate view.
Re:Beginnings. (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of quoting the matrix you may want to change to quoting Einstein:
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear-that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms-it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.
-Albert Einstein, The World as I See It
Re:Beginnings. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, apart from the meaningless, out of context quotes from "authorities", your mystics tap into something that can't be detected and produce no communicatible results.
I'm sure it's a very nice delusion, with a way to train the release of endorphins or self-stimulate that part of the mind that produces that "one-with-the-universe" feeling (that can also be accomplished with an electrode), and it may even produce some nice rule-to-live-by....
But if you stop at mysticism - you're no better than those parents that let their kid die because they used prayer instead of medical attention.
Re:Beginnings. (Score:2, Insightful)
And who is strangely unable to demonstrate these insights to anyone else in a repeatable manner.
Re:Beginnings. (Score:5, Insightful)
It can also be accomplished with hallucinogenic drugs, and it is indeed a wonderful delusion. I just wish other people would realise it IS only a delusion (I'll happily have a couple of tabs of acid and go all mystical for 12 hours or so, but while I still marvel at the tricks my mind plays on me, I still KNOW they are just tricks.
Re:Kids can handle it (Score:3, Insightful)
They DID remove people's hearts. Why do you think it was inappropriate for your son to gain this factual knowledge? As long as you aren't showing him graphic depictions of the process that are going to give him nightmares, I seeing absolutely nothing wrong.
Re:Wikipedia lessons for kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Edit it. Add the fact that she has a dinosaur for a pet. Or the part about her having five elbows. Save. Show. (And then revert.) Ask your kid about the wisdom of using Wikipedia. (*)
Better idea, do all of that, but DON'T revert it. Go back to the page sometime later and point out that someone else has fixed the mistakes. THEN ask your kid about the wisdom of using Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is not infallible, and mistakes can slip through and even remain for a long time in some rare cases, but most things will be fixed very quickly, and "in general" it is a fairly accurate resource (especially if you actually check cited references). It is, on the whole, far MORE accurate than many other accepted resources precisely because it is editable.
Re:Beginnings. (Score:3, Insightful)
Go to a science museum (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia lessons for kids (Score:3, Insightful)
SLIGHT problem with your method - it almost always will not work. On the occasions that I review a Wikipedia article, I don't just "check that there is a source", but I actually check the validity, quality, reliability and veracity of that source. And I'm not alone in my thoroughness.
I am definitely NOT new to "this Wikipedia thing"
Re:Look at PBS again. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's like Reboot, which teaches you an awful lot about computers, but soon as you learn all that stuff for real, you also learn that nope-a mainframe isn't its own little city.
Uh, I'm religious and I think magic school bus is one of the coolest things ever. (I also like big bang and evolution and all those fun theories.)No, that's exactly why it's *right* (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a good way to give the kid antibodies against superstition and mysticism, in other words. "No, we don't really understand what stuff is really made from. Nobody does... not yet. But people know a lot more about it than they did I was your age, and we can do a lot of cool stuff with the knowledge we have."
Re:Intellectual Sloth & Subhuman Cruelty (Score:2, Insightful)
As someone who WAS a suicidal nihilist WITH a religious outlook on life, I can tell you that you're full of it.
gb2church
Re:Reproducible, yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Ergo, anyone who cannot reproduce the experience is not practicing meditation intensely enough. Your statement is unfalsifiable.
Mod Parent Up (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want a solid, secular explanation of evolutionary biology, do yourself a favor and watch this series with your children. You can tell your children "God was behind it" or anything else that will make you feel better about it, but at least they'll have an accurate understanding of the facts and theory. They'll also learn a lot of interesting things about biology.
Falsifiable (Score:3, Insightful)
Well if you want to get down to it, nothing can be proven to you until your senses and your reason have sifted it and found it to be consistent with your experience. In some cases an hypothesis will be so out of whack with your experience that no argument will be able to convince you of its truth, and you'll need to see for yourself.
Insight experiences are simply the most powerful example of this principle. The only validation to be found is in going to the very place where the answer lies and seeing for yourself. Because of the nature of the problem of self, direct investigation is the only way to gain the needed experiential parity to even come to terms.
And sure, in the end, you may fail. Or even if you manage to have an "experience" (which is not the point) you can choose to believe that there is no content in what you've experienced, and nothing will have been proven to you. And that's fine too.
I have to play two sides here, because I am well convinced that meditation plays an essential role in exercising areas of the brain and aspects of consciousness that habits like thinking simply can't. But on the other hand, I'm strongly averse to the kind of mysticism as described in this thread (being opposed to reason).
Obviously, practical problems require practical solutions; our everyday experiences require us to weigh and calculate. ("Trust in Allah - but tie up your camel!") Now, when it comes to the practical problem of the self ("Who am i?") meditation and related remedies are reasonably indicated.
It just happens that mystical experiences and insights often follow, in part because the mind is no longer anchored to self-talk as its mirror of identity, but also because of what we're made of -- probability waves, mostly empty space, pure energy... the nature of which is innate to us. The sense of self and other disappears of necessity - it becomes clear to oneself that separateness is a meaningless concept, but all one has to go on is an inexpressible experience.
One comes away with a sense of awe, understandably frustrated by conventional means of expressing oneself, and of reflecting on the world. When someone asks, "What is reality like?" the only useful answers seem to be in the form of analogies, poems, and cries in the wilderness of "find out for yourself."
I think it's a mistake to assume that people who have had mystical insights are necessarily abandoning reason. Reason is after all, very very useful! Me personally, I find that reason is very helpful to remind me that I can't walk through walls after all, despite being utterly "empty."
Now, science isn't totally unable to study mystical phenomena. Dan Dennett's heterophenomenological approach ought to suffice just fine! The individual reports by people of their mystical experiences can be taken as simply being subjective reports, and you use standard methods of quantification and analysis to derive data. Over a long enough period of time you can begin to build a picture, and then you can know how to take these reports.
I think that's an important key to many such problem. One can choose to take a critical stance in which mystical assertions are points on which you must choose to agree or disagree, or you can note down the subjective report of the organic system in question, add it to your data, and hold off your conclusions until enough information is accumulated.
Of course, all this presumes that one is interested in the subject enough to look more deeply into it. But for many people, their conclusions have already been drawn.
As for my part, I am staying open to the value of mystical experience, so called, and to not-knowing as a potent epistemological stance. In fact, I feel more empty and sponge-like already!