Sympathy for people with nonsense beliefs.
Why it is so hard for them to change.
Three of my hero’s are:
Galileo Galilei, 1564 to 1642
Isaac Newton, 1642 to 1726 or 1727
Charles Darwin, 1809 to 1882
I think about these people and how they came up with their ideas.
They took facts that were:
- Taught in schools,
- Written in books,
- Presented by the intellectuals of the age,
- Common knowledge of the day,
- Dictated and enforced, sometimes with death, by a powerful church.
These people, and a few others, challenged the known facts of the age and found they were either false or limited. To do that takes more than intelligence since there were many highly intelligent people of the time. It was not that they were smarter. The idea that they were geniuses is an excuse for us not to do the same.
Anyone can challenge known assumptions. All it requires is a questioning mind and the ability to do research or an experiment. Few actually follow through and even fewer make it their career.
I picked three, but there are many more who are women, minorities, or live in other countries.