
How to Raise a Scientist in the Xbox Age - tokenadult
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-raise-a-scientist-in-the-xbox-age-1450137781
======
socket0
> Try taking apart a modern cellphone or a laptop computer. > Assuming you can
> even figure out how to pry it open, the > inside is as mysterious and
> inscrutable as the outside.

I remember taking apart old radios as a child in the 70s, marvelling at the
colourful transistors and resistors. But I had no way of knowing what exactly
these were, and even less of a clue as to how it all worked. So sure, it's
hard to intuit how a smartphone or a computer works just by looking at the
insides. But today's budding scientists have the world's knowledge at their
fingertips, and will be able to find diagrams and schematics for a lot of
devices, and a large number of sites explaining what every component is and
how it works. You don't raise scientists, you give them interesting toys to
play with, and they simply raise themselves.

~~~
adaml_623
I disagree a little bit with you. One clock radio I pulled apart had a
mechanical time display and while the radio was indeed an inscrutable PCB
covered in components it matched the level of complexity I expected to see.

Nowadays the complexity is hidden under a smooth patch of black plastic that
can have smart phone levels of complexity internally and no hint at the that
from the outside.

Obviously it's swings and roundabouts since you can indeed find a wealth of
information online about any of these subjects but sometimes it feels like
it's harder to kindle the initial fire of curiosity.

~~~
TeMPOraL
ICs are literal magic black boxes. The same-looking square can be the brain of
a device, a stone that knows where it is, a full-blown radar[0], or just two
capacitors and an op amp. And you can't tell by just looking at it; the only
visual difference is in the magic runes written on the dark stone.

[0] - [https://www.google.com/atap/project-
soli/](https://www.google.com/atap/project-soli/)

------
chc4
Anecdotal maybe, but I got interested in computer science _because_ of video
games.

I learned programming from messing around with the online game Roblox, which
is essentially a game engine with Lua scripting support. I played lots of
games, wanted to learn how to make the same thing myself, and discovered the
wonderful world of programming. A majority of the programmers I am friends
with I met through Roblox, and have been friends with ever since, and all of
them got into programming the same way.

~~~
eecks
My interest in CS/programming came from the Internet but my interest in the
Internet came as a direct result of gaming.

~~~
fokinsean
Me too. I played tons of xbox in high school (Halo 2/3 CoD 4), but when I went
to college my gaming time went essentially to zero. However I decided to pick
up CS because I thought it would be really cool to understand how computers
and game systems worked.

I just recently graduated and picked up the new xbox since I have some free
time now. I ran into an issue playing Halo 5 where I kept getting disconnected
from the game, and it turns out it is a bug in the networking software in
combination with the "instant on" feature that was causing it. My networks
class gave me a decent enough background where I can actually understand the
bug is. I thought that was pretty cool!

[http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=931438](http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=931438)

------
TeMPOraL
I think the biggest obstacle to raising scientists and engineers is...
parents. Especially if they are overcaucious and subscribe to the popular
belief that technology is evil and kids should play football outside. Kids are
naturally curious, and it takes effort to screw that up. Also, there are tried
and true methods of increasing chances that a kid will grow up with interest
in science and engineering. Unfortunately, they are very uncomfortable to the
mainstream views. Some examples:

\- let kids have free time, instead of structuring their every waking minute

\- give kids lots of unsupervised computer time - you can't do anything _but_
play stupid games if you only have strict time limits, but if they are not
worried about using up their weekly allowance, they may start doing some
creative stuff (including discovering programming)

\- don't mind kids learning how to break stuff, or literally blow shit up -
maybe even encourage them; that especially _includes_ pyrotechnics

\- let them read the book past midnight

\- don't obsess too much about grades

\- realize that doing science often literally looks like being less social
than peers and involves not going out to play football every evening

And above all,

\- be patient

~~~
optimuspaul
That's great advice until you realize that your kids are just spending all
that computer time watching stupid YouTube videos and not actually learning
anything at all except "What are those?"

Time will tell though... I know I wasted a lot of time as a kid, but that was
pre-internet, I had to read books to learn things.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You have to accept that kids will spend a lot of time doing stupid shit.
That's the part of learning experience. But at some point there may come a
moment when a kid starts to wonder how to _make_ stupid shit like what they
saw, and there is the opportunity for them to learn creative/technical stuff.
But they won't get that chance with hard, strict limits - then there's only
time to _watch_.

BTW. I personally wouldn't discount even the educational value of stupid
YouTube videos. Kids pull a lot more out of media than adults do. We see just
a funny clip, but for a kid it's a way to learn a new language, learn new
phrases of the native language, learn some culture, etc.

~~~
lfowles
> But at some point there may come a moment when a kid starts to wonder how to
> make stupid shit like what they saw

My journey in the past decade has roughly been "stupid shit", "how does that
stupid shit work?", "why am I consuming the stupid shit when my peers are
clearly capable of creating it?"

The biggest leap was realizing that it was _my peers_ creating much of this,
so it was feasible for me to do the same!

------
bluedino
Scientists were raised in the 'Nintendo age'. Scientists were raised in the
'TV' age. Scientists were raised in whatever kids wasted their time doing
before TV.

~~~
rubidium
This scientist was raised in the Nintendo/ TV age, but with parents who
limited my time at such activities. Spending time outside was mandatory.
Boredom followed by inventing games/tearing stuff apart was frequent. There's
certainly no 100% foolproof method to raising a scientist (and I think that'd
be a terrible parenting goal :), but there may be things to learn here.

It would be fascinating to have a study of current 25-35 year olds occupations
and parenting rules. Perhaps it's been done? (a few rules that could be asked
about "limited screen time", punishment (e.g. spanking, timeout), being sent
"outside", etc...).

~~~
tlarkworthy
My father would not get me a Nintendo and instead gave me something
programmable (a BBC). He said I was free to buy a Nintendo though which I
obviously could not afford. So I programmed until I was old enough to get a
weekend job at 15, and I bought and sold games a lot. Good moves Father! The
value of money and a programming career.

------
drallison
Non-paywalled version:
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwikuqzamOPJAhVH5GMKHVi1AM4QqQIIHTAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fhow-
to-raise-a-scientist-in-the-xbox-
age-1450137781&usg=AFQjCNHxMlufWbRKKNMcUl9xQEXT0gUJdA&sig2=1v9nQygIHlbdtvDzsHtyxQ)

~~~
richenglish
The quick suggestion at the end of buying your kid a mechanical clock and a
screwdriver is great.

Going shopping later today.

~~~
rustynails77
Pulling apart appliances is a great idea. I've had that in the back of my mind
but pushed it back for too long. Thanks for the reminder.

This article reflects some of my own views. I moderate my kids' access time to
electronic games very tightly. We have frequent group discussions on things
we've seen, done, learned, etc. The conversations are really amazing and are a
good lead-in to bedtime.

It shouldn't surprise me, but I often hear more intelligent conversation from
my kids than I do from most media sources. In fact, we sometimes analyse
places like The Verge for their prejudice as an exercise in critical thinking
around flawed arguments and fallacies. We look at youtube for history,
engineering and biology videos. We've developed board games, Rube Goldberg
machines, flying craft, gone on bike hikes, looked at water safety...

If you live in the suburbs and you look in your local area, there are many
free educational community activities too. We've looked at construction,
robotics, software and sports activities to name a few.

We even make up our own learning activities. Eg. we went shopping together and
discussed food priorities, food costs for equivalent items, set a budget,
discussed buying local v/s imported food, etc.

There are learning opportunities all around. I feel that education on
computers is over-rated and critical thinking outside of a computer is
underrated. It just takes a lot of time and energy. I usually put in a weekend
of planning about a month before school holidays.

~~~
lfowles
I don't know, I opened up (too) many toys and appliances as a kid and the only
thing I learned was how to open things up. As far as I was concerned, the
resistors in there were lined up in a pentagram to summon the proper amounts
of electrical current. Guided disassembly would have been much less
frustrating for me (in terms of learning) and my parents (in terms of me not
being able to reassemble everything quite perfectly... or playing bomb
defuser)

------
ohblahitsme
Man this article screams "kids today blah blah blah" and is totally ill
founded. I was born in 1993 and grew up with video games and now I'm a
scientist (anecdotal I know, but this article isn't scientific either). Being
a scientist is about asking questions that intrigue you and finding the answer
to them. People who want to do this will do this regardless of whether or not
they play video games (or do any other leisurely activity like Netflix
bingeing).

~~~
qp9384btv_2e
21, 22 year old scientist?

~~~
ohblahitsme
Yep, 22!

~~~
gmtgmt
happy to hear that, it proves my hunch on the matter

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _hunch_

Isn't it what we called "basic arithmetics" back in the day? :).

------
FussyZeus
"Kids these days weren't as $X as my generation, they should do $Y instead of
$Z because that's what I did."

I'm pretty sure you could find variants of this scrawled into a cave wall in
the cradle of civilization if you looked hard enough.

~~~
ghostDancer
The famous Socrates quote : [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/63219-the-
children-now-love...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/63219-the-children-now-
love-luxury-they-have-bad-manners-contempt)

------
tribune
> Modern children are also deprived of another key ingredient that has powered
> many a young person down the road to a career in science: boredom, and lots
> of it.

I've always had a little pet theory that boredom is actually a major driver
behind a lot of innovations, and doesn't just matter in children.

~~~
radiorental
Agreed. Boredom is a motivator, the issue is how it's relieved.

The easy fix is gaming, it's like junk food for boredom hunger. Take away the
junk food and you get reading/tinkering/creative play etc etc.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I disagree about it; I'd say gaming is actually a great way to exercise
creativity and to progress to more... practical stuff.

There is, on the other hand, one "easy fix" that most kids end up taking - it
is _spending time with people_. Hanging out. It's an infinite time sink. You
can get bored or tired with a video game, but other people are the best at
inventing something new to do or experience. Except if all the kids do is
hanging out with each other, they aren't exactly learning much.

So I guess it depends on who you want your kid to become. If you're aiming for
a "people person", then by all means, cut out computer time. But if you want
an engineer, I'd personally stick with video games.

~~~
lfowles
> You can get bored or tired with a video game, but other people are the best
> at inventing something new to do or experience.

That sounds like a driver of innovation too! Maybe the real issue is that kids
should be taught motivational skills to make hanging out "productive".

------
stillsut
The big difference today is how ruthless the competition is to position
yourself for a rewarding career in science. Even at a young age, you need to
be setting yourself apart with _accomplishments_ not just curiosity.

If you were to read the the autobiography of many of today's top scientists
like E.O. Wilson [0], they explicitly say that they wouldn't be accepted into
hard science program today with a childhood spent collecting bugs.

So the "scary" part of little Johnny going through an Xbox phase for a few
years is that even if he comes out the other side curious about the natural
world, little Suzy has already entered the Intel Science Fair, made
connections at a research university, etc.

[0]: [http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Scientist-Edward-
Wilson/...](http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Scientist-Edward-
Wilson/dp/1491525908)

~~~
stuxnet79
This is essentially the issue. Having a head start matters. A lot. I went
through a phase where I played a lot of video games. I don't regret any of it,
but I feel like if I was in a more rigorous high school and had exposure to
advanced material I would have benefited from it.

------
sliverstorm
In my case, the simple lack of money was my teacher. (That, and the internet)

I couldn't afford a computer, but I wanted one badly. I learned used Xboxes
($100) could run Linux with some elbow grease.

So I put together every dime I had and bought one. A week later the hard drive
died, so I had to learn to replace that (found an e-waste spindle, learned to
hack the Xbox to accept unlocked drives). And it turns out the VGA adapter had
to be hand-made with parts from DigiKey. Then old corroded traces started
failing. Debacle after debacle, I killed that thing and resurrected it, again
and again.

Viola, I began to learn tremendous amounts about things that had before been
utter black boxes. Probably the single biggest impetuous to me working in
technology.

------
mydpy
Bah. Paywall.

And yeah, I still play video games. And I'm a scientist. Actually, video games
probably helped develop my scientific mind. I wish video games wouldn't be
equivalent to drivel in the eyes of casual observers. There is so much more to
gaming.

------
cryoshon
As a scientist, I was amused by a simplistic representation of what the
"scientist" class of people need to be happy in the game Anno 2205. In order
for the scientists to be happy, they need (aside from subsistence food, water,
and lowbrow entertainment): luxury food, stimulants, computers, replicators,
and secrecy. In my experience, all of the above (save for replicators, which
are slated to be essential but not yet developed) are critical to being a
scientist.

But, how do we produce scientists? By fostering open minded curiosity and its
cousin, wonder, then introducing critical thought as a guide once the former
two have been established firmly. The path of curiosity inevitably leads
toward uncharted territory, and, instead of cautioning against the unknown for
fear of failure, we should encourage the young to forge ahead-- this is
something that most parents will not do, because the unknown is frightening.
To raise a scientist, I assume it might also be helpful (but not ethical) to
have a complex series of lies / unprovable or counterfactual stories to tell
to the child as though they were truth, so that they may have practice in
combating poor thought or ignorance, another critical task that scientists
must perform at all times to the best of their ability.

In short: first cultivate a hunger for knowledge, and then a hunger for facts,
and finally a hunger for truth.

------
michaelbuddy
I think of long ago when people would put in countless hours on projects
because they had less distractions. But I've also found people will still put
in countless hours on projects. Including grinding on xbox games, but also
electronic and web / digital / app building feats. Even if we have less
scientist types and more distracted types, we have a way to instantly connect
the ground breaking scientist / builders so that their work can be modified by
us less gifted distracted losers.

------
metasean
I'd like to offer Robert Scherrer, the author of this article, some cheese
with his whine.

> But I could have created a better chemistry set from the liquids in my own
> refrigerator.

I was a student in a mostly remote, freshman college science class. Other than
our one week on campus, all of our chemistry "experiments" were done with
things we had in our house or that could be bought at any corner store.

There are plenty of people who do this for a variety of reasons -
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=at+home+chemistry&t=ffhp](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=at+home+chemistry&t=ffhp)

(And since he seems to think that getting in trouble is important, I feel the
need to point out that you can still get in trouble with chemicals found
around the house - e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach#Chlorine-
based_bleaches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach#Chlorine-based_bleaches)
. Tangent, many years ago I had a friend who did not know this – until he
landed in the ER after mixing way too many and varied household cleaners.)

> Assuming you can even figure out how to pry it open, the inside is as
> mysterious and inscrutable as the outside.

Not if you have a minimally knowledgeable mentor (i.e. knowledgeable enough to
know how to lookup what you find online). If you have a kid and aren't able to
be their knowledgeable mentor, you and your kid/s really should check out your
closest makerspace/s.

>Yet how can we expect junior scientists to daydream, when they can be playing
computer games instead?

Give them games with scientific content, e.g.

\-
[http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/online_science/games.aspx](http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/online_science/games.aspx)

\- [http://www.onlinecolleges.net/50-great-sites-for-serious-
edu...](http://www.onlinecolleges.net/50-great-sites-for-serious-educational-
games/)

In fact, there's an emerging field of education focused on Game-Based
Learning:

\- [http://newmedia.org/game-based-learning--what-it-is-why-
it-w...](http://newmedia.org/game-based-learning--what-it-is-why-it-works-and-
where-its-going.html)

\-
[http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/index.html](http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/index.html)

And look, there's even some hyper-relevant research _Becoming Chemists through
Game-Based Inquiry Learning: The Case of "Legends of Alkhimia"_ \-
[http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ985421](http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ985421) /
[http://www.ejel.org/issue/download.html?idArticle=188](http://www.ejel.org/issue/download.html?idArticle=188)
that shows...

>Two evaluation criteria were used: (1) effectiveness of separation, and (2)
demonstration of conceptual understanding of chemistry. We found that the
Alkhimia students significantly outperformed the control students when
assessed on the extent to which effective separation was achieved in the
students' proposed solution (t75 = 2.56, p = 0.026) and when assessed with
respect to conceptual understanding of chemistry in the separation task (t75 =
3.41, p = 0.002).

