This is the check list that was in a plastic bin
a take-home list to help you better understand what you experienced
...and how that can give you deeper insight into the subtleties of science.
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Think of it as a passport into the magical realms of math and science.
The check boxes are for your visa stamps indicating you have seen a bit of the magic.

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X
check list for
X
Five steps to climb
for a better view 
Visit
explorepdx.com

The August 2003 "Have you discovered" section will be an active discussion of how to climb the five steps.


 
Step 1 Scope 
Always look further! Some of that important stuff we don't see might bite us.

Recognize the potential for being deceived, and for self-deception.

Identify the established science in the list of beliefs--at least some of them--and explain what they are.
Explain how (and why) a person can reliably get rich through a lottery.

 
click
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Step 2 Relevance 
Don't waste time! Some seemingly important things aren't really important.

Recognize the webs of causes and effects, and 
our tendency to focus on phony causes and effects.

Explain how to tell if sunlight can burn or tan (and why) .

Try Wason's card selection problem.  Look for the unexpected irrelevance and the usually unrecognized relevance.

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Step 3 Math (simple ratio)
Simple but powerful! 

Valuable "super-vision"; bad mistakes are possible if we're blind to it!

Which of those taxes costs the most (to each individual) and which the least?  (Understand how to calculate this). 

How many pottles in a firkin? (We may safely assume that a firkin is a quarter barrel -- a barrel is 36 gallons -- and a pottle is two quarts.)

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Step 4 Logic 
Bad logic might seem silly!

Sometimes we meet silly people; we hope it isn't us.

How can we remove two squares from a checkerboard so that 31 dominos cannot cover the remaining squares?   How can we remove them so they can?

Suggest a substitution of pieces of the 5X5X5 cube puzzle (leaving the pieces still with the right volume, 125 little cubes) that will make the puzzle impossible to solve?  Explain why your substitution makes a solution impossible. 

"A Corvallis resident won the state lottery last year; although I wasn't a Corvallis resident last year I became one this year; therefore I will win the state lottery this year."  Explain why this reasoning isn't correct.

(The above  is a cousin of the Wason card problem.  Why?) 

Explain the solution to Wason's card selection problem: which cards must be turned over to test the hypothesis (it's an "if...then," an implication) and explain why.


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Step 5 Tensor (multicomponent measures) 
Some real magic of math! The real "higher dimensions" 

We don't see all of what always surrounds us.

Explain how to arrange all colors (paint chips) so that the closer any two are, the more similar they are; and the more similar, the closer. 

Do the same for ellipses. 

Do the same for the athletes .

Apply this principle to any (perhaps all) use of comparatives or superlatives (better, best, bigger biggest, dumber, dumbest, etc). 

Identify some traps that Mother Nature has set for the beast that cannot learn to see in many dimensions 

After August 1, explorepdx.com for more on climbing the steps.