Learn about common misconceptions around learning that even educators believe; why sensory-specific satiety makes you feel like you always have more room for dessert; and how science writer Carl Zimmer responded when we asked him “what is life?” In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Even Educators Believe Common Myths About Learning — https://curiosity.im/2tFh7MR Here's the Scientific Reason You Always Have Room for Dessert — https://curiosity.im/2tDeMCa More from Carl Zimmer: Carl Zimmer’s website — https://carlzimmer.com/ “She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity” — https://amazon.com “Matter,” Zimmer’s weekly science column for The New York Times — http://www.nytimes.com/column/matter “What Is Life,” a podcast series of live conversations between writer Carl Zimmer and eight leading thinkers on the question of what it means to be alive — https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-is-life/id1451004288?mt=2 Follow @CarlZimmer on Twitter — https://twitter.com/carlzimmer Additional publications from Carl Zimmer — https://amazon.com Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about common misconceptions around learning that even educators believe; why sensory-specific satiety makes you feel like you always have more room for dessert; and how science writer Carl Zimmer responded when we asked him “what is life?”
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
More from Carl Zimmer:
Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/carl-zimmer-on-defining-life-learning-myths-even-educators-believe-and-the-truth-about-dessert-stomach
CODY GOFF: Happy holidays. We're wrapping up the year with two of our favorite episodes from 2019, featuring science writer Carl Zimmer.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today's classic episode is ad-free, so we hope you enjoy. And you should know that we first published this episode on Pi Day. To be clear, Pi Day is not today. Although, you're certainly welcome to eat some pie to celebrate the new year.
CODY GOFF: If you have no idea what we're talking about, then don't worry. It'll make sense in a few minutes. Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve. And stay subscribed to see Curiosity Daily for brand new episodes, starting in 2020.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's tomorrow.
CODY GOFF: Hi, we're here from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Goff.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about common learning myths that even educators believe. And the scientific reason why it feels like you always have more room for dessert like pie.
CODY GOFF: Happy Pi Day.
ASHLEY HAMER: Happy Pi Day. You'll also hear what happened when we asked science writer Carl Zimmer a pretty big question, what is life?
CODY GOFF: Let's satisfy some curiosity. We started yesterday's episode with a little bit of myth-busting, so why not do it again? This time, we'll talk about misconceptions around learning. And according to one study, even educators believe these seven myths.
As reported by HowStuffWorks, this study looked at results from a true or false survey taken by more than 3,000 respondents. There were three groups of participants who took the survey. One was the general public, one was general educators, and one was people who had taken college neuroscience courses, what the study calls people with high neuroscience exposure.
And these myths are so pervasive they were believed by 68% of the general public, 56% of educators, so yeah, more than half, and 46% of the neuroscience-exposed group, which is pretty close to half too. Here are the seven myths.
First, individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style. Sorry, but research has shown those don't exist. Second, children have learning styles that are dominated by a particular sense, like hearing or seeing. Again, no. Third, a common sign of dyslexia is seeing letters backwards. There is actually no evidence of this.
Fourth, listening to classical music increases children's reasoning ability. If only. Talk about an easy way to give your kids an edge, am I right? But no, it's not true. Fifth, children are less attentive after they have sugary drinks or snacks. Turns out that's just a false association. The sixth myth, people can be left-brained or right-brained, and that helps explain learning differences.
We've done whole podcast episodes on how the left brain, right brain thing is just plain wrong. So yeah, that one's also a myth. And seventh, we only use 10% of our brain. Turns out there are loads of evidence that all the parts of our brain are always active. Otherwise, if you had brain damage, there would be a 90% chance nothing bad would come from it, right?
The point of this study wasn't to make you feel dumb, so please don't if you didn't know any of these things. Instead, the researchers are hoping they can help educators set people straight and share more accurate information in the future. We don't know what we don't know. So don't let these myths discourage you. Think of it as an opportunity to think smarter, not harder.
ASHLEY HAMER: You always have more room in your brain for knowledge, but you know what else it feels like you always have room for? Dessert. And there's a specific reason for that. What better way to celebrate Pi Day than by learning why it feels like you can always eat pie?
CODY GOFF: By the way, it's Pi Day because today is March 14th, which on the calendar is 3/14. Pi is 3.14.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's right.
CODY GOFF: I don't know how many people we should explain this to. I just feel like maybe it's worth noting.
ASHLEY HAMER: No, absolutely. And also, I feel like it's worth noting that I'm definitely going to eat pie today.
CODY GOFF: [LAUGHS]
ASHLEY HAMER: I do it every year. I'm absolutely going to. There's a lovely little pie cafe in my neighborhood.
CODY GOFF: What kind of pie?
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, it just depends on what's on the menu. I mean, they've got a really good chocolate peanut butter pie that I might be going for.
CODY GOFF: I'm a cherry pie guy.
ASHLEY HAMER: Weird. So according to one school of thought, you always have room for dessert because of a thing called sensory-specific satiety. It basically means that you weren't actually full. Your senses were just bored. Sensory-specific satiety refers to the idea that the more of one kind of food you eat in a single sitting, the less appealing that food becomes.
It might feel like you're full, but really, it's just that your brain is kind of bored and doesn't want to take a 20th bite of that chicken breast. That's why when the pie shows up, you're suddenly ready to eat again. If you're watching your waistline, don't worry. There's a way to get around this.
A 2009 study published in the British Journal of Nutrition found that you can make sensory-specific satiety happen faster if you eat in smaller doses. That can help you feel full before you find yourself overeating. For example, for this study, people who were told that they could drink as much orange soda as they wanted to, ended up drinking less if they drank in smaller sips.
Those smaller sips led to more sensory exposure per ounce. So the participants reached sensory-specific satiety faster. So the next time dinner comes with a promise of pie, don't skip dessert. Just eat in smaller bites.
CODY GOFF: Have you ever wondered about the scientific definition of life? Well, we have. And you're about to hear from someone else who has too. Carl Zimmer is an award-winning science writer. And we interviewed him at an event for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. AAAS.
ASHLEY HAMER: On top of all of his writing, he has a new podcast literally called What is Life? It's a series of live conversations between Carl Zimmer and eight leading thinkers on the question of what it means to be alive. It makes him pretty qualified to answer this question. So here's a little mini-philosophical discussion we had when I asked him straight up, what is life?
CARL ZIMMER: So I had these conversations with leading experts on the definition of life, on the origin of life. And I would ask them, well, what's your definition of life? And they would really squirm hard to get out of that. And part of that is just because we don't have a theory of life yet.
And what's interesting is actually that some of these scientists, like Jeremy England at MIT, are actually developing these theories, looking at life as an energy dissipation process. And they're actually starting to study it seriously, scientifically, in a way that just wasn't possible before. So I don't think it is possible to give a definition of life. It just isn't. You can talk about life as a process, maybe, but I don't know.
I'm not sure we'd know life if we found it on another planet. I mean, I think we're so limited to ourselves. It's sort of like in Star Trek where everyone on other planets has like two arms and two legs and happens to look like a Hollywood extra. How interesting is that? That's not how it's going to be. It's going to be like some crystal in a cave that seems to be moving. And is that alive or not? It's going to be weird.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I was particularly fascinated with the astrobiologist who believed that life doesn't follow physics. Physics is actually a subset of what causes life.
CARL ZIMMER: Yeah, I know. I know. And I'm trying to have a conversation with this person in front of a live audience. And I'm like, keep the brain inside the skull. What is she saying? This is wild. Yeah. They're a fun crew to hang out with, definitely.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'd imagine.
CODY GOFF: I think it's cool you're expanding some of these questions. Like I think of ancient Greece in philosophy and science, we're not different in the ancient Greece. It was basically the same kind of thing. And that really sounds like what a lot of-- the subject of your latest book. If you're talking about genes and who we are and what we are, there's a little bit of philosophy in there too, right?
CARL ZIMMER: A lot of philosophy. I mean, in a way, I think of philosophy as figuring out what you mean by what you say. And scientists do not really think that much about what they mean because they think that they have a very clear-cut one-to-one mapping between their language and reality.
But if you say like, oh, I'm a scientist who studies life, a philosopher would be like, yeah, and what's that? And literally, you could-- There was a one scientist who looked at different definitions of life. And he came up with over 300 of them, like serious legitimate definitions of life that scientists have put forward.
So scientists are not agreed on it. Now, it helps to sort of start to make sure you're being clear about what you're thinking about, especially when it comes to genes. If you say like well, it's in my DNA. Whoa, what do you mean?
I mean, ever since I told people I was working on a book on heredity, they said like, oh, well, X is in my DNA. The X can be anything from, I don't know, hemophilia to just love an ice cream. It's just everything we think of as being somewhere embedded in our DNA, and it's not. So we could benefit from thinking more like philosophers, I think.
ASHLEY HAMER: We'll put links to Carl Zimmer's podcast, What is Life, in today's show notes, along with links to his book and more.
CODY GOFF: Read about today's stories and more on curiosity.com.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow with the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOFF: And I'm Cody Goff. Stay curious.
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