Here's a quote from James Gleick's: _Genius_ that I think fits this topic well:
 
"Someone who trusts science to explain the everyday must continually make
connections between textbook knowledge and real knowledge, the knowledge we
receive and the knowledge we truly own. We are told when we are young that
the earth is round, that it circles the sun, that it spins on a tilted
axis. We may accept the teaching on faith, the frail teaching of a modern
secular religion. Or we may solder these strands to a frame of
understanding from which it may not be so easily be disengaged. We watch
the sun's arc fall in the sky as winter approaches. We guess the time from
the shadow of a lamppost. We walk across a merry-go-round and strain
against the sideways Coriolus force, and we are trying to connect the
sensation to our received knowledge of the habits of earthly cyclones:
northern hemisphere, low pressure, counter-clockwise. We time the vanishing
point of a tall-masted ship below the horizon. The sun, the wind, the waves
all join in preventing our return to a flat-earth world, where we could
watch the tides follow the moon without understanding." James Gleick:
_Genius_
 
 
Robert O. Dahl
Interpretation and Conceptual Exhibit Design            Ph:(602) 797-4752
 
8421 N. Via Tioga
Tucson, AZ 85704
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