Americans unable to distinguish "shit" from "Shinola": 73%
Americans unable distinguish "ass" from "hole in the ground": 56%
Americans unable to find brain with both hands and hunting dog: 62%
I've been following the NASA and NOAA pages on Facebook. The information releases are generally kind of interesting and the pictures are cool, but it's the commentary afterwards that really amuses me. I know it's dangerous to characterize an entire population on the basis of twenty or thirty comments on a Facebook page, but when have I ever been leery of making sweeping generalizations about whole societies on the basis of a few comments?
From reading the comments, I conclude the following:
About one in twenty Americans can spell.
About one in thirty Americans can write a grammatically correct sentence.
About one in six people on the NOAA feed are conspiracy theorists who believe that NOAA is part of some sinister and apparently "Marxist" plot to... Well, I'm not sure what the ultimate goal of this plot is supposed to be. Usher in "soshulism", I guess. Whatever that is.
About one in four people on the NASA feed don't understand simple scientific concepts like the conservation of energy, the conservation of momentum, or what an "orbit" is.
About one in three people on the NASA feed will mention things like string theory or relativity to substantiate their goofy theories and beliefs, but it's obvious that they don't really know anything about string theory, relativity, or for that matter Swiss cheese.
About one in four people on both feeds tends to evaluate scientific research, or the results thereof, on the basis of ideological or religious correctness. (I am reminded of the way the Soviet Union officially banned the theory of continental drift, apparently finding the idea of continents floating on a semi-solid mantle to be contrary to Marxist ideology. But all the gassy Party rhetoric didn't change the fact that continents actually do float on a semi-solid mantle and actually do move. Soviet-era geologists, who knew that the theory was correct, were forced to call it something else to avoid invoking the displeasure of the grim grey anti-intellectuals in the Politburo. I think they called it the "down-going slab theory". And for what it's worth, I read Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto, and I don't remember Marx or Engels saying anything at all about geology. But I may have been snoozing, as they are powerfully boring books. At least with Mein Kampf you could keep yourself awake by thinking Jesus, what loony nonsense is he going to spout next?)
I'm not saying that everyone should be a scientist. A lot of people just aren't interested in relativity or quantum mechanics, and that's fine. But I AM saying that if you don't know anything about a given subject, you may want to consider keeping your cake-hole shut. For instance - I have a friend that is going for a Masters in education. The idea that I, someone who doesn't know the first thing about teaching a child anything, would presume to tell her anything about pedagogy is just stupid. I have another friend who is a professional copy-writer for various groups who have to raise funds by sending people those scary letters in the mail. The idea that I would presume to think that my insights in the psychology and sociology of fund-raising are the same as hers is, of course, just flat wrong.
I'm not sure who to blame. Our educational system is clearly failing, but it goes beyond that. We've somehow gotten to the point where we believe that we have the perfect right, perhaps even the actual obligation, to tell people what we think about everything. I blame post-modernism for this, though up to a point I just think post-modernism is silly and like to blame it for all sorts of things, including toe-jam and those hideous cramps I sometimes get in my calves. The idea that everything is relative and there are no fundamental truths is silly, and the idea that everything must be evaluated on the basis of one's unique sense of victimization is... Well, let's just tactfully draw a sheet over that particular corpse before I become hysterical.
To some extent, the news media fails us. In their efforts to appear "balanced" on any given subject, they drag in self-declared "experts" to argue against whatever the subject of the day is. When they do stories about the alleged Apollo moon-landing hoax, they drag in some guy from the middle of nowhere with no credentials, and ask us to believe that his pro-hoax testimony is somehow of equal merit to the testimony of the 400,000 engineers and scientists who actually worked in the Apollo program. It's gotten to the point that if they have a news story about the sky being blue, they'll dredge up some crusty old crank who insists that the sky is really pink but we're just being conditioned by an incredibly sly and slick conspiracy to think it's blue.
A friend of mine is currently lobbying to have herself declared Empress of the World. I'm in favor of that, since she wants to apply simple IQ tests to various things. When you go to an amusement park, there are the signs that read "You must be this tall to go on this ride." She thinks there should be similar signs elsewhere that read "You must be this smart to procreate" or "You must be this smart to post comments on a Facebook news feed" or "You must be this smart to vote."
I'm in favor that. You've got my vote.
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