The Royal Society‘s science journal Biology Letters has published a most unusual paper: it was researched and written by a group of children aged 8-10. Simply titled Blackawton Bees, it is the product of 25 U.K. students who worked with neuroscientists to collect data on whether bumblebees could be trained to learn which flowers to forage from by using color and pattern cues. Their track sheets recorded diagrams and simple stats, with visual puzzles the children designed for the bees to “solve.” They found that the bees responded to complex color and spatial arrangements to learn which flower held food. Written in age-appropriate language, the paper concludes that “before doing these experiments we did not really think a lot about bees and how they are as smart as us …. (Bees-seem to-think!)” An accompanying essay from two neuroscientists say that, while the report is lacking vigorous analysis, the finding is significant. [%comments]
A New Definition of “Young Researcher”
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Scientific process, thinking and research is not limited to adults–Anyone can be trained and disciplined to practice scientific experiments. And a white coat and horn rim glasses are not necessary.
And many do it daily in course of normal day. What is the fastest route to work? How timely is the 7:10 bus? What is the best technique to shovel snow? Can I experiment with a new meatloaf recipe? Why does honey have anti-microbrial properties?
I would be proud to be a member of a scientific and rational age leading to innovation and inventions. But trends are not promising.
The question really should be, why don’t kids do more research? We are taught the scientific method from the very beginning, but it is never truly applied to anything in school. If children are offered opportunities to conduct their own experiments with a professional, it would not be a stretch to imagine kids across America using their creativity and applying it to discovering something new instead of coloring all day. Plus, perhaps more of them will become, if not scientists, scientific thinkers- and thus lead to more rational politicians, economists, etc.
Just 30 more years of study and work and some of those kids may be able to make the cut for their first grant from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). The average age for first independent NIH grant is about 40.
Too bad Dr. William Osler was mostly correct when he wrote “the effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of 25 and 40. Beyond the age of 40 men are pretty much useless and after the age of 60, men are completely useless.”
And thus, the scientific community, and Lottolab Studio sayeth…
“Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. ”
“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
We thank the whole of the Blackawton community, who truly engaged with the science research, including the George Inn-where the manuscript was written-for the free Cokes for the children (and pints for others).
(COKES for the children! Not Perrier? What kind of example are the neuroscientists setting for these budding young minds? All yhat processed sugar! The kids get free Cokes… and the scientists reap the benefit of free scientifically brewed hops, barley, and malt. Such a deal.)
It is always amusing to see darling children paraded as little miniature adults. Remember those Tom Thumb weddings we were coerced into? I especially like it when children are put behind the stick of an airplane. Wheee…we’re flying just like an adult.
I’m surprised NASA hasn’t launched a few children into orbit. They are just soooo cute.
Hey kids, buck up! The Chinese are eating your lunch. Hey scientists, get a hobby that doesn’t involve children!
My daughter is at NASA today. She’s completing some work for a paper on her findings before returning to Berkeley.
She turned 16 last month – this work began when she was 14 at NASA.
What people fail to realize is that a successful researcher often has a long apprenticeship that must begin early because the combination of academic scholarship and lab / internship research is very grueling.
Research, like medicine and law, is a profession and avocation. And just as the naturalists of a prior age began with field work collections in their teens, a new generation is using computers and labs to organize and structure their work.
And as “an old scientist” noted, those first grants will still take a long time to obtain – but in the meantime these young researchers-in-training will be working on projects paid for by grants obtained by an older mentor network.
I suspect that thinking implies conscious decision making. When dogs sniff out drugs or lead police to a person… Or, when circus animals “learn” tricks they are using the technique of B. F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning. Or, from his predecessor Ivan Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning.
Many species can behave via these methods — but it is “thinking”?
The question really is… How do we define thinking and cognition?