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When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis

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Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis

#21

Post by jahmed »

gdubs wrote: post #11

Perhaps children intuitively have 'chain of events' thought patterns. It's something many adults seem to lack, which makes proposing solutions to big problems difficult; because one has to be able to see far beyond simple cause & effect to both understand the problem and the proposed solution.

Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. The beat the curiosity out of the kids. They out-number kids. They vote. They wield resources. That's why my public focus is primarily adults.

-Neil deGrasse Tyson

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/mateq/i_am_neil_degras...

Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis

#22

Post by Kronopath »

Michiel wrote: post #5
luke_s wrote: post #4

I have two kids, and the youngest is just starting on the 'why?' phase. Its great fun! I treat it as a game to try and see how long I can keep on answering. As soon as I don't know the answer, I explain that I don't know (or perhaps that nobody yet knows) and discuss how we could find out. One interesting thing I discovered - a surprisingly large number of things will either lead to physics or human psychology if you…

> However I don't know if that reflects some deeper truth about the world, or just my bias in how I answer the questions. It's the same reason why you always end up on "Philosophy" if you're browsing Wikipedia and consistently follow the first link in each article. Here's the path for "Airplane": Airplane Fixed wing aircraft Aircraft Vehicle Motion (physics) Natural science Science Knowledge /* we know where this goi…

I think that website cheats a little bit. The first link in "Science" is not "Knowledge" but "Latin", where it's describing the root of the word "Science". If you follow it properly, you'll find that even the article for "5 Whys" doesn't go to Philosophy:

  5 Whys
  Technique
  Technology
  Tool
  Goal
  Animal
  Eukaryote
  Organism
  Biology
  Natural Science
  Science
  Latin
  Italic Languages
  Indo-European Languages
  Language Family
  Language
  Human
  Taxonomy
  Ancient Greek
  Greek Language
  Indo-European Languages // Infinite loop!

Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis

#23

Post by esrauch »

Kronopath wrote: post #22
Michiel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However I don't know if that reflects some deeper truth about the world, or just my bias in how I answer the questions. It's the same reason why you always end up on "Philosophy" if you're browsing Wikipedia and consistently follow the first link in each article. Here's the path for "Airplane": Airplane Fixed wing aircraft Aircraft Vehicle Motion (physics) Natural science Science Knowledge /* we know where this goi…

I think that website cheats a little bit. The first link in "Science" is not "Knowledge" but "Latin", where it's describing the root of the word "Science". If you follow it properly, you'll find that even the article for "5 Whys" doesn't go to Philosophy: 5 Whys Technique Technology Tool Goal Animal Eukaryote Organism Biology Natural Science Science Latin Italic Languages Indo-European Languages Language Family Langu…

I think the wikipedia game specifically excludes words in parenthesis and italics. Following those rules you actually do get to Philosophy, and you also get to Philosophy from Indo-European Languages.

Though there are some other cycles that exist.

Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis

#24

Post by bane »

"Why" is an interesting hack. Before this children learn how things work through observation of events. "Why" is a force multiplier where the child no longer even has to wait for events to happen but can explore things that haven't happened or that are hard to observe. It's a short hop from there to deep abstraction and philosophy.

Cultivating this may be one of the most important things that parents can do in terms of ensuring children keep their curiosity long into adult hood (with appropriate training to develop the endless string of "whys" into a more socially acceptable question answering model).

Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis

#25

Post by Michiel »

Kronopath wrote: post #22
Michiel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However I don't know if that reflects some deeper truth about the world, or just my bias in how I answer the questions. It's the same reason why you always end up on "Philosophy" if you're browsing Wikipedia and consistently follow the first link in each article. Here's the path for "Airplane": Airplane Fixed wing aircraft Aircraft Vehicle Motion (physics) Natural science Science Knowledge /* we know where this goi…

I think that website cheats a little bit. The first link in "Science" is not "Knowledge" but "Latin", where it's describing the root of the word "Science". If you follow it properly, you'll find that even the article for "5 Whys" doesn't go to Philosophy: 5 Whys Technique Technology Tool Goal Animal Eukaryote Organism Biology Natural Science Science Latin Italic Languages Indo-European Languages Language Family Langu…

That path seems to go in the same direction, but then it diverges in Science, mostly due to the first sentence on that page, where [Latin] and [knowledge] are links:

> Science (from [Latin] scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes [knowledge]...

It happens again in Taxonomy, which otherwise would surely lead to Philosophy from the [classification] link:

> Taxonomy (from [Greek]: τάξις taxis "arrangement" and Greek: νομία nomia "method"[1]) is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a [classification].

On our way to Philosophy we are constantly confronted with Latin and Greek concepts, because Rome and Greece are where many of the concepts in Philosophy originated.

Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis

#26

Post by matb33 »

luke_s wrote: post #4

I have two kids, and the youngest is just starting on the 'why?' phase. Its great fun! I treat it as a game to try and see how long I can keep on answering. As soon as I don't know the answer, I explain that I don't know (or perhaps that nobody yet knows) and discuss how we could find out. One interesting thing I discovered - a surprisingly large number of things will either lead to physics or human psychology if you…

I have two as well and the eldest just started the Whys a few weeks ago. Some of my parent-friends with slightly older kids complain about the endless Whys... Maybe I'll get to that same point of annoyance someday (I hope not), but so far I relish the challenge, hoping not to get stumped too quickly!
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