This was a well written article that nails the unfortunate reality of our society today. You see evidence of this "everyone's an expert/everyone's special" mindset on a lot of levels, too. Social promotion is rife in the schools, grade inflation happens even in the Ivy League, and students are admitted to universities without even being able to construct a basic 5 paragraph essay. A college degree doesn't mean much these days since most everyone gets one and the education isn't all that rigorous, or at least it isn't perceived to be. And maybe that's another piece of all this...
Unfortunately, scientists sometimes discredit themselves when evidence comes to light that research results were bought with grant dollars or results that don't match current scientific "expectations" are suppressed. The media also doesn't help with their piss-poor reporting skills when it comes to scientific research. We all know the weariness of the public at hearing of yet-one-more-thing that turns out not to be so bad for us that those damn researchers told us was horrible just last year.
So our society and education continue to erode. And while this certainly was occurring to some extent before January 2001, I've seen it accelerate at a frightening pace since George Bush the Younger took office. But the more important issue is what can any of us do about this? I've read a lot of articles like this one, but none of them have advice on how we can bail out this sinking ship. Yes we can vote these morons out of office, but that strategy doesn't seem to be working of late for one reason or another. What else can we do? How do we affect the needed systemic changes that we need to make to turn this country around? Is it already too late?
no subject
This was a well written article that nails the unfortunate reality of our society today. You see evidence of this "everyone's an expert/everyone's special" mindset on a lot of levels, too. Social promotion is rife in the schools, grade inflation happens even in the Ivy League, and students are admitted to universities without even being able to construct a basic 5 paragraph essay. A college degree doesn't mean much these days since most everyone gets one and the education isn't all that rigorous, or at least it isn't perceived to be. And maybe that's another piece of all this...
Unfortunately, scientists sometimes discredit themselves when evidence comes to light that research results were bought with grant dollars or results that don't match current scientific "expectations" are suppressed. The media also doesn't help with their piss-poor reporting skills when it comes to scientific research. We all know the weariness of the public at hearing of yet-one-more-thing that turns out not to be so bad for us that those damn researchers told us was horrible just last year.
So our society and education continue to erode. And while this certainly was occurring to some extent before January 2001, I've seen it accelerate at a frightening pace since George Bush the Younger took office. But the more important issue is what can any of us do about this? I've read a lot of articles like this one, but none of them have advice on how we can bail out this sinking ship. Yes we can vote these morons out of office, but that strategy doesn't seem to be working of late for one reason or another. What else can we do? How do we affect the needed systemic changes that we need to make to turn this country around? Is it already too late?