One thing from this interview that I will likely remember in a year from now is how Firestein mentions that "it wasn't until [he] got to graduate school that [he] realized people cared more about what questions [he] had then what crap [he] knew" (16:15). This was particularly interesting to me because there's so much information available out there, and people who are able to contain that knowledge within them are likely to be viewed very highly. However, it is very difficult to reach that level of mastery, so introducing the concept of curiosity as a metric for people's interest in oneself may be a confidence boost. This is likely to generate intrinsic interest in the subject at hand because it creates a lower stakes environment that is more receptive to learning.
An aspect of this interview that may change the future is an important quote that Firestein says: "I like to call it not out of the box thinking but out of the book thinking" (16:28). He notes that there's a difference between simply processing the information taught in academia versus fully interacting with it (15:57). By being able to develop a deeper understanding of the material we know, we can become better thinkers in our daily lives. I think it is a good idea to step outside of the textbooks and see how much can be applied to daily life, such as the physics behind every motion, the math behind engineered objects, and of course, acknowledging that it is sometimes more important to ask a good question than to provide a good answer when approaching the world from this lens.
Hey! I also watched this interview, and I think it's interesting that we got slightly different takeaways! I focused on scientific study, and you focused on the question component.
Hi I really like this, super insightful I also think questions are super important!! Wondering what kinds of questions Firestein wants to investigate in the future....