I'm a little rusty on my history, but I'm willing to bet that Newton didn't have to try terribly hard to get people to accept his theory of gravity. He just had to drop something to the ground in front of him. "That's gravity." And they believed him. (And the venture capitalists were so impressed they wrote him a check on the spot.)

We understand it, because we can see it, and I think this is most of what we think of as science. I don't understand the underlying math equations that govern nature, but I understand the patterns I see in the world around me, and generally, 98% of the time, the patterns have become intuitive to me, and things behave as I would expect.

Contrast that with a gyroscope. Ever seen one? You can go into almost any toy store in the country and buy one for about ten bucks. Here's one in action, balancing on a string:



See that? It isn't quite magic, because I know there's no trickery involved, but at the same time, I don't understand it. Sure, I'm willing to bet there's some complex equations that explain this kind of behavior, but they're waaaayyyy beyond me. What's happening here just doesn't make sense. Even with tourists on Segways zipping all over town (they're balanced by industrial gyroscopes inside of them), this is the kind of science that I just can't take for granted. My intellect isn't capable of it.

Looking upon the world with wonder is, I believe, all about not taking things for granted.