Mindful Reading

After taking this class, I have found that I am much more conscious of what I read. Whether this is pleasure reading or scientific reading, I am constantly thinking about the “footnotes”. Even if there are not footnotes, I have learned that in order to be a conscious reader, you must do some background work on the topic, author, etc. Especially in scientific literature, I am quick to consider and look into any outside agendas of the research. Is this a source that I can trust; What is the company funding the research; What background does the author come from. These are all great questions to consider when reading and I think that this helps you get the most out of the piece of work you are reading.

In general, I think that this virtue I have been handed as being a student in CSCL 3331: The Sciences and the Humanities will only help me. I believe that being cautious as to what I believe as being true is a great asset to have, especially as a person of the sciences. As Matt mentioned, it may make you slightly paranoid. Does it personally make me more paranoid? A little, but I believe it is beneficial to be educated on all the aspects that affect each word written on the page. We have seen many times how each word seems to have been intricately chosen by the author in order to get a point across, support a cause, refute evidence… the list could go on and on.

I thought it was especially interesting to hear classmates quoting their parents: “ignorance is bliss” and “the more you know, the less you understand”. I think both of these are very true in their own way. As educated human beings, we are more able to contradict an idea presented with other knowledge we have acquired. This is the source of many heated debates, some of which we have witnessed in class. Knowing more does make everything a little more complicated and it is sometimes hard to separate all this in your head at once. But, the more you know doesn’t always correlate to understanding less. I think this can be true in some cases but isn’t always true. I think that being able to apply your knowledge allows you to truly understand what you know and this application process is the what makes the knowledge “stick”.

During my group’s presentation of global warming, there seemed to be a debate on what to believe. There are so many different ideas about the causes of global warming and even if the global warming crisis actually exists or if it is just a natural process of the Earth. With my research for the project, it seemed that each site had their own set of data supporting their “idea” of what is right. On the first day of a statistics class I took, we learned about how statistics can be used to support just about anything you want it to. Correlation does not mean causation and the global warming data is a perfect example of this.

All in all, I don’t know if I will ever be able to “fun” read again without thinking hmm… I should look up the bio on this author and see what he or she is involved with / associated with… my summer reading list recently became much more interesting!

Thank you for a great semester!