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Comment by nsxwolf | Hacker News Reader

You can be curious about a Drano bomb while simultaneously not building and detonating one on school property.

We should value things besides curiosity in our scientists. Responsibility and safety matter too.

Yeah but for chrissakes she's just a kid.

Kids will do stupid things, but you have to instruct them on not doing stupid things, which is going to include negative consequences for doing stupid things. That's part of growing up.

Except in my day it was detention and a call to your parents. Today it's expulsion and felony charges? Sorry, that's not part of growing up. That's ruining the rest of your life for a stupid mistake (that caused no one harm).

Agreed, expulsion and felony charges are excessive. A girl like this one can understand the stupidity of her actions without career-killing consequences.

An appropriate negative consequence for this particular stupid thing might have been, for example, a stern admonishment not to do that again, with some explanation of the protocols involved in getting permission for such an experiment.

Felony charges are ludicrous, a mindless reaction.

So a question, do scientists not make a distinction between blowing things up for fun and blowing things up for an organized scientific experiment?

I understand that blowing things up and having fun can be part of a scientific experiment, but that doesn't mean any time that someone makes an explosion that they're participating in a scientific experiment, unless we're using a very loose definition of the word.

My favorite science teachers in high school and junior high blew things up for fun all the time. Curiosity is the important factor driving people into science.

Of course, and I'm not arguing that explosions have no place in science, but I'm not sure if this answers the question I posed.

I think that the definition of a "scientific" experiment should include harmless fun that leads to an exploration of science. I'd argue that children (young children especially) are the world's most active scientists. Every time they throw something, climb something, jump off of something, fall down, get up, etc. they're conducting a physics experiment.

If calling a just-for-fun HCl+Al bomb a science experiment helps the world to gain another scientist, or even just a well-rounded, open minded, curious adult, then yes, let's blur the distinction between blowing stuff up for fun and "science".

Blowing things up is fun, and kids should be able to blow things up for fun if it gets them interested in science. But they should do it at a safe distance from behind a blast shield. Still fun, but much safer.

Fear is the mind killer.

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