Are learned and innate the only types of behaviors?

Sine, I understand the frustrations of biologists very well even though I'm not one. Being a physicist, I regularly run into common people that try to disprove what they've read about physics in popular magazines. Here is an example. Suppose you are in an elevator going upward at a constant speed. You decide to jump up and then fall back down to the elevator floor. The question is will you hit the elevator floor at a faster speed than if you were standing on solid ground?Want to take a guess? Any first year physics student should be able to get this right in 2 seconds. But people's common sense tell them otherwise. I've run into crowds where everyone agreed with each other on the wrong answer and would not believe me at all when I told them otherwise.Another frustration I often encounter is the way a projectile moves. Say you have a gun shooting a bullet at an angle parallel to the ground at exactly the same time you decide to drop an object from the same height as the gun. Which will hit the ground first? The bullet or the object? Again, people's common sense tell them that the object will hit the ground first and that the bullet will keep going until it runs out of energy or mana or whatever the hell people want to call it. This is something that I have seen many people believing in because of their common sense despite how much I tried to explain to them that horizontal motion and vertical motion don't affect each other.You're trying to sell to me that what people can see and interpret based on their common sense should have more value than what scientists say. I'm sorry, but my personal experience as well as the personal experiences of countless other physicists, biologists, geologists, engineers, etc. say otherwise.If common people are so trustworthy about these subjects, why is it that we very regularly see bogus arguments for creationism that go something like "if people came from monkeys how come there are still monkeys around?" This is as equally frustrating as my experience with people who tried to disprove what physicists say by something like "if gravity is real how come rocks don't orbit mountains?"

They don't jump up and down trying to rectify this for the same reason that politicians don't jump up and down trying to rectify soundbites portrayed by the media. What exactly can we do? The media really doesn't care about truth and whatnot. They only care whether their articles are catchy enough for ordinary people to care to read. I highly doubt they'd pay much attention to the mad scientist that was misquoted.PS - Wanna give us your perspective in this thread?Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

Now, you're just nitpicking the semantics. Are you seriously saying that Joe Blow's common sense puts fluid dynamics into account everytime he is asked about projectile motion?Hypothetical situations are what sent us to the moon and beyond. We've sent probes to every planet using these hypothetical mind experiments to slingshoot the probes there (no, Pluto ain't a planet anymore... and even then we'll have a probe orbiting Pluto in a few short years).Last time I brought this up, everyone around me assumed that the probes that we have sent to the planets went in a straight line there. It took me a while to explain that the probes had to gather energy from the various planets before there was enough for them to go to their final destinations. Forgive me for sounding condescending, but I would trust these hypothetical mind experiments over Joe Average's common sense any day.

For the record, I've been playing "football" (not american football) for as long as I could remember. This is the first I've heard of it. Well, I'd use the evidence of my own eyes as well in this particular case. How would you propose we go about using the evidence of our own eyes when we send probes to other planetary bodies? Actually, not many. The probes that were lost were due to unforeseen factors such as unexpected gravitational densities. As a matter of fact, off the top of my head I can't think of any major mission failure except for the failed mars mission a couple years ago, and that was due to program error (metric vs english). And I'm telling you that they don't. In order for them to actually grasp the concept of orbital mechanics, they first have to know how projectile motion works. Again, it is a frustration among people like myself when we have to deal with large numbers of people that don't actually understand projectile motion.Common sense is great for regular immediate things, but it is not very accurate for scientific inquiries. The heliocentric model didn't come about through common sense. Newton's laws didn't come about through common sense. In fact, he had to invent calculus in order to understand gravity.By the way, you do realize that it's impossible for one to see the a probe or lunar module move toward its target, right? It moves at such incredible speed through such great distance that even if you can somehow "see" it for any substantial amount of time it would seem the probe is moving in a straight line.

Simple question. Do you doubt the existence of nitrogen in our atmosphere?

What you ask is impossible in many areas. I could explain with mathematical equations how quantum computers work. But there is no way in hell I can do it simply enough for a lay person to understand. In order to have a minimal elementary understanding of it, you need to understand quantum mechanics first and high level calculus. How exactly do you propose we go about convincing the public that quantum computers work without saying "just take our word for it"? Or do you doubt the existence of quantum computers?

Sure there is. You breathe, don't you? You breathe oxygen, not nitrogen.

You're kidding, right? Everything in everyday experience is in conflict with the concept of quantum computer. Everyday life doesn't operate on probability and uncertainty.

Funny how you mentioned magicians. The people that they fool the most are scientists, you know.