I do understand people when they say that you destroy the magic of childhood if you encourage too much skeptical questioning.
Interpretation
Encouraging skepticism can diminish the wonder and imagination of childhood.
Richard Dawkins emphasizes the tension between fostering critical thinking and preserving the innocence and magic of childhood. While questioning the world is important for intellectual growth, too much skepticism might rob children of their ability to appreciate the fantastical and imaginative aspects of life, leading to a more mundane perspective on the world.
In practice
During a parenting seminar, a speaker could use the quote to discuss the balance between encouraging curiosity and preserving childhood wonder.
No educated person believes the Adam and Eve myth nowadays, but it's surprising how many parents think that it's somehow fun to pass on this falsehood to their children...I would want to argue that the truth of evolution is more interesting and more poetic
If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.
The population of the U.S. is nearly 300 million, including many of the best educated, most talented, most resourceful, humane people on earth. By almost any measure of civilised attainment, from Nobel prize-counts on down, the U.S. leads the world by miles.
When you make machines that are capable of obeying instructions slavishly, and among those instructions are 'duplicate me' instructions, then of course the system is wide open to exploitation by parasites.
Even if not a single fossil has ever been found, the evidence from surviving animals would still overwhelmingly force the conclusion that Darwin was right.
The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews.
Geometry enlightens the intellect and sets one's mind right. All of its proofs are very clear and orderly. It is hardly possible for errors to enter into geometrical reasoning, because it is well arranged and orderly. Thus, the mind that constantly applies itself to geometry is not likely to fall into error. In this convenient way, the person who knows geometry acquires intelligence.
Some kids win the lottery at birth; far too many don't - and most people have a hard time catching up over the rest of their lives. Children raised in disadvantaged environments are not only much less likely to succeed in school or in society, but they are also much less likely to be healthy adults.
Part of my job as Children's Laureate is to visit schools and talk about my love of books and stories and encourage them all to do it as well - to read, to write, to never be afraid of their own voice. Because we all have something to say.
Hold a book in your hand and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city.
I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here.
No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally β and often far more β worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.
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