Sometimes I wonder: do we even know how to do science anymore? How to learn something new? Not memorizing facts or repeating “right” answers or collecting other people’s or AI’s texts. I mean real learning and real science —where you notice, test, question, fail, compare, analyze, and eventually create something new.
That’s what’s been bothering me lately.
Even back in my school days, education often felt like: cite the right person, echo your professor, or fit into the academic box. I always rebelled against that—probably because I have a very bad memory. I can learn very quickly, but I cannot memorize anything. I must understand, absorb the concept, and create my own theory. I was lucky that some of my school teachers allowed me to have my own opinion.
Even in science… scientific articles, which are supposed to bring something new into the world, require layers of citations—as if we’re not allowed to think unless someone else has thought it first.
But thinking is the work.
I keep finding myself drawn to how people used to learn—before the internet, before Google, even before universal access to library knowledge, and all those modern tools to capture objective observation of events like camera or sound records. Back then, you only had your own sketches and descriptions. Darwin didn’t have YouTube—he couldn’t record a video and go through frame-by-frame comparisons. Farmers didn’t have “Top 10 Hacks” for growing tomatoes. Breeders didn’t ask ChatGPT what causes crossbeak in chicks. They observed. They wrote things down. They created their own datasets.
The breeder’s log. The farmer’s calendar. The philosopher’s notebook. The astronomer’s sketches. Darwin’s tiny field drawings that eventually became Origin of Species.
It wasn’t perfect. But it was real thinking—not just info collection, not just random facts or images you don’t even know are real or not.
This is my Everest for the last year. I am trying to keep a lot of logs—about my chickens, ducks, goats, my home systems, my thoughts, even my social media experiments. Not because I’m trying to be organized or productive (though sometimes that happens too). I do it because I want to see what I missed, catch the patterns, understand what changed.
And honestly, I’m deeply disappointed in the modern system of education - that no one ever taught me how to do that. I’m 50 and I feel like I’m just now learning how to think. And I’m only at the beginning. And if before everyone taught how to find ready to go answers in books and papers, not it's all about "how to create the best AI prompt".
How I do that—and where I struggle:
My main struggle is capturing consistent data for the same environment or objects. If something changes and it’s not documented, or I don’t write it down—what worked, what didn’t, what I thought about it—it disappears. And my conclusions could be wrong. You can be overwhelmed by electronic seamlessly captured data (I recorded the whole video on the topic what data I am tracking on chickens, chicks and goats - check my YouTube or my web-site), you can over rely on the AI capturing data (triggered movement, red flagged events - I have all those settings) but your conclusions, you thoughts, your ideas - that what is the most important.
Capturing my ideas based on that data analysis is the hardest habit I ever had to develop: one second I have a brilliant insight, and the next moment I’m searching for extra details to proof or disproof it, taking a screenshot of something else, and completely forgetting to record what was actually important. That's all. The original insight is gone.
But here are my small wins:
For six months straight now: I keep notes, logs, journals. I write theories down. I test ideas. I compare results. I ask: “If it worked—why? If it didn’t—why not? What did I change?” I am getting better and better at this. To do not capture excessive not needed facts or internet pictures, but write down the really important one.
And I’ll tell you—my auditing experience really helps here. You can’t set up objective experiments if you haven’t defined the right scope, the right rules, and the right expectations.
And you know what? That quiet habit has given me more breakthroughs than any training or course ever did.
If you feel the same way—like your own thoughts are getting buried under endless scrolling—try writing them down. Start a “scholar’s log,” a “breeder’s log,” a “what-the-heck-happened-here” notebook. Anything.
Just don’t let your own thinking get lost. Or replaced by AI.
For the hero who finished that article to this point, and who subscribed on my website, you can find the guide in the comments - the guide of how I tracking all my farm animals health and food. If you have pets you love and if you a data nerd - you will love it. It's easy, it's free and it will be available from any device.
