Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Three hundred and forty three days in the project #CriticalThinking in 365 concepts

We are three weeks away from goal completion. At least I am. Where is everyone who chose to follow our exercise is of course up to everyone. 

These last couple of weeks, during a day live university class, I asked of course an ages old question:

"If I drop this Apple [iPad], is it possible that the Apple [iPad] attracts the Earth with a force equal with the force that Earth attracts the Apple [iPad]?"

After some deliberation, my class unanimously declared "not just no, but Hell no!"

The answer is of course _yes._ Not only is it possible, but it's always going to be the case. With an apple 🍎 or an Apple branded product alike.

When Isaac Newton gave that answer back in the mid-late 1600s, they were laughing at him. Our thorough understanding of inertia does actually come from Newton for the most part. Let's assign 1720, when Newton was still alive and by then a celebrity, to be the year when supposedly his answer could have made it to be known by a lot of his contemporaries. Three hundred years ago, and my very smart university students still have—on average, as one student agreed with the statement but she was quickly silenced down—no full understanding of how inertia and gravitation work.

Yet, even Newton, the greatest scientific genius of all times, was eventually later proven wrong, under conditions he did not take into consideration back in his time. Such is always the nature of science. To believe otherwise would mean to bury our head in the sand. 

In this context, my class would sooner or later naturally ask:

"Do you support Mr. X?"

where X is the name of the current President of the United States, at the time of the asking.

Obviously, to that, today and any day, this year and any year, past, current or future, I can only offer this:

"Objection, Your Honor, relevance."

I support the Office of President of the United States. I will always take the freedom to think critically about the performance of any person occupying that position. And I take it to be my responsibility to show others how to do the same, all the time, every time. 

The key concept we were working on introducing was of course _paradigms_ in science.

I find it troublesome that high school graduates admitted to a university don't deal better with paradigms. If humanity will perish it will be due to our inattention to proper education of our youth into thinking and learning for themselves.  All while we have so many excellent examples of Great to follow, but we just chose to ignore them. Maybe we can change that before it gets to be too late. 

337. Write it out. Clearly. Yes, you!


338. Shortage. Necessity is the mother of all invention. Attitude is the father. or
I, or anyone else, cannot teach anyone anything. Y'all, however, can learn anything y'all want to, if y'all so choose.


339. Every good idea may and will first be denounced. Then, once adopted, it will be derailed. The silver lining comes much after all that. If we still seek it by then.


340. "Sometimes you just thank God for making it all so easy." (Jon Meacham)


341. We only see or hear what we want to.


342. If all we do is reacting to others, when is it that we think for ourselves? Use your brain to its fullest. Master your own time.


343. Dichotomy between your personal brand and your "official position."


If we made it to here, then let's stay another few weeks.

As always, let me know if you may have questions.

Adrian S. Petrescu, Ph.D., J.D.
Chief Future Architect, InnovationTrek
We got here. What's next?
Accelerate Innovation. 
In companies and self.
Grow flow. Naturally.
ASPetrescu@InnovationTrek.org

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