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"As every parent knows, children begin life as uninhibited, unabashed explorers of the unknown. From the time we can walk and talk, we want to know what things are and how they work — we begin life as little scientists. But most of us quickly lose our intrinsic scientific passion. And it’s a profound loss."."

--Brian Greene, "Put a Little Science in Your Life"

This particular paragraph in the article caught my attention though whether that was a good or bad thing I haven't decided. Dr. Greene talks about how we begin life as little scientists but quickly lose our passion for questioning what things are, how they work and, in my opinion, the most important--why. Why something is the way it is, why it works in such and such manner and so on. What he doesn't seem to realize is that this questioning, this "intrinsic scientific passion" is not generally promoted--not in school nor home. At least, not where I'm from. When you're young, asking all those questions are cute, if not a little annoying. But keep at it and as you get older, be it several months older, a year or two, you're told in an exasperated tone to just be quiet or stop bothering whoever it is you're asking. It's cute when you're three. When you're seven, eight, ten, you're disrupting a class. It doesn't matter how you introduce the science--if you teach the child that asking questions is a bad or annoying thing, or that one can only ask certain questions (and really, you can say they can feel free to ask you any question, but if you don't follow through with it, they won't) and within a very specific time frame, the child will naturally learn to curb their own questions and hide/curb their curiosity. Science becomes just another subject like math, english, or history, where things are spoken/thrown at you and you simply accept it to be 'true' with little to no questions.