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MISEDUCATION
There is a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual
elitism in American culture. It’s the dismissal of science, of the arts, and
humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness,
ignorance, and deliberate gullibility. –Ray Williams, Wired for Success article
July 07, 2014
The Texas Senate is pushing for the enforcement of its legislator’s preferred religion on the state’s children by requiring that the Christian scripture’s Ten Commandments be to be displayed in public schools. Senate Bill 10 passed on a 20-1 vote along party lines. Earlier. Senate Bill 11, allowing students to take time from the serious work of study to pray- a form of wishful thinking- to infringe on the three Rs. The bill ignored the fact that students are allowed to pray without the Senate’s input; they just cannot be guided or forced into the ritual by school staff. The dumb-down crowd pushing for a Taliban-like enforcement of their beliefs will not likely stop at mere displays and private time.
With the sweeping victory of Donald Trump into the White
House and his party taking majorities in the nation’s senate and House of
Representatives, such extreme politics have become the norm, not the exception.
We can expect to see further bills from more conservative states introducing
similar measures if the Texas effort succeeds and, being that it is Texas that
those states will emulate, we can count on an authoritarian frenzy to sweep all
but the most scientifically literate locales.
The United State has a long history of such attempts to dumb
down the citizenry. Early in our history, Congress rejected George Washington’s
proposal for a national university because it might offend the dominance of
Christian universities in the nation’s educational system, 1 thus beginning
America’s long flirtation with what journalist Charles P. Pierce called’’
“Idiot America.”2 The drive to force a bronze-age knowledge system
onto the public, combined with the undercurrent of anti-intellectualism that rises
to the surface with alarming frequency and driven with doctrinal Christianity’s
obsessive need to force it’s dogmatic beliefs onto the world go back in U.S.
history at least to the time of the First Great Awakening that captured the
fledging nation between the 1730s and the 1770s. Christine Leigh
Heyrman at the National Humanities Center writes: “Throughout the colonies,
conservative and moderate clergymen questioned the emotionalism of evangelicals
and charged that disorder and discord attended the revivals.”3 Now,
some 275 years later, those conservatives embrace the very emotion over
intellect they once rejected as a necessary component of political ideology.
“Facts don’t care about your feelings,” someone once said, with feeling.
Look into any talk radio program, read any social media meme
promoting far-right propaganda (and some from the left-- those devious libtards
are waking up) and you will find appeals to emotion; Outrage, anger, revenge,
hate… One might search for days without seeing a single message designed to
stir the intellect.
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its
way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that
democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” ― Isaac
Asimov
Thomas Jefferson “was the first distinguished victim of a
decisively anti-intellectual attack, and the assault on him (leveled
principally by Federalist leaders and members of the established clergy) set a
precedent for subsequent efforts to render an active, curious mind either
trivial and ridiculous or evil and dangerous...The capacity for reflective,
creative, and critical thought, finely honed argumentation, and public
persuasion—talents one might otherwise assume well recommend a candidate for
the office of president—were transformed into the gravest of liabilities.”4
A highly influential, if not seminal, work by Richard
Hofstadter, defined anti-intellectualism as: “a resentment and suspicion of
the life of the mind and of those who are considered to represent it; and a
disposition constantly to minimize the value of that life”.
By that definition, anti-intellectualism has reached a fever
pitch in modern American life. Consider that…
- One-third of Americans believe in a literal
interpretation of the Bible. “Nearly 6 in 10 believe that the bloody
predictions of the Book of Revelations—which involve the massacre of everyone
who does not accept Jesus as the Messiah—will come true.”1
- Two-thirds of Americans want creationism taught alongside of evolution in public schools.
- Forty-eight percent accept any form of evolution—even theistic evolution.
- Twenty-six percent accept Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.
- An astounding 42 percent believe all life has existed in their present form since the beginning of time.1a. 5.
Those numbers a scary, but they are not the whole story.
Though it appears that Americans are prone to magical thinking based on a
particular religion as expressed in a particular sacred text, yet “A majority
of American adults…cannot name the four Gospels or identify Genesis as the
first book of the Bible.1b
A 1998 study from the University of Texas found that
one-fourth of public-school biology teachers believe that humans and dinosaurs
inhabited the earth at the same time. Be afraid for our public-school students.
Be very afraid.
The battle to keep knowledge and not opinion and belief in
the public’s perception of reality was aptly addressed by Pastor Ray Mummert:
“We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, uneducated segment of our culture.”2.
Given that he thought he was attacking intellectualism, he
likely did not think his message through.
The really surprising thing about Intelligent Design (ID)
theorists is that they miss the larger point about explanation, which is that
to explain something by invoking something itself unexplained is to provide no
explanation at all 6.
American media is replete with such campaigns to malign
intelligence and expertise, but we cannot lay the blame entirely on religion
for the persistence of anti-intellectualism in America. The political system has
contributed more than its share of efforts to dumb down the populace.
JUNK SCIENCE
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a Soviet agronomist who
developed a pseudo-science based on Lamarckism, defined bybritannica.com as “a
theory of evolution based on the principle that physical changes in organisms
during their lifetime…could be transmitted to their offspring.” The term has
come to signify the suppression of or refusal to acknowledge, science for
ideological reasons,7 such as that of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his
fellow conspiracy theorists.
A recent study is reportedly held up by Kennedy and
conspiracy theory mongers as revealing a link between vaccines and autism. That
study, The study “Vaccination and Neurodevelopmental
Disorders: A Study of Nine-Year-Old Children Enrolled in Medicaid” does not show a relationship between
vaccines and autism, regardless of Mr. Kennedy’s claims to the contrary.
The study has a long list of flaws as documented by the American Council on
Science and Health8, and the publisher of the study, itself, faces criticism
across the world wide web as a fake science blog, and not a scientific
journal—although, in fairness, there exists a number of sites praising the
publisher, the "Science, Public Health Policy, and the Law."9.
A few micro-incidents that sought to stupefy the American
public:
·
George
W. Bushe’s favorite climate “expert,” novelist Michael Crichton. Left a legacy
for the delight of conspiracy theorists on the level of RFK’s vaccine
disinformation drive.10 His climate change denial still resonates
with the “alternate facts” set, twenty-two years later.
·
America’s
disconnect with reality was on full view when an untold number believed that
the Democratic Party ran a child-trafficking ring out of a pizza restaurant in
Washington, D.C. Such is the state of the nation’s critical thinking
capabilities. Elon Musk widened the gap between reality and the gullible set
when he revived the story in late 2023,11 proving once again that
the wealthy are not smarter than you; only luckier.
·
The
Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines "factoid" as "1: an
invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print. 2: a briefly
stated and usually trivial fact. Here, that definition is expanded to, a fact
stripped of all nuance and context. Factoids are not usually used in the media,
but they are effective in use among friends, relatives, and associates. In this
sense, factoids are intended to produce specific inferences. Someone might tell
you, in reference to undocumented immigrants sent to New York City, “The
government gives illegal immigrants in New York City free luxury hotel rooms
and credit cards. Credit cards!”
You
are supposed to imagine hundreds of immigrants bound for El Salvador living in
the Waldorf Astoria while shopping with their government-issued Platinum
American Express cards. But you know that New York City has contracts with area
hotels to hold several rooms for official visitors. It cost less to house
immigrants there than to lease rooms anew. And those credit cards? Limited to
use for food and baby supplies only. Your conspiracy-minded uncle neglected to
divulge that part as it didn’t serve his narrative. That, or he was merely
disinformed.
In that event, he
was in large company.
##
Bibliography
1. Susan Jacoby, The Age of
American Unreason (Pantheon Books, 2008) 18
1a. Jacoby, The Age of
American Unreason, 22-23
1b. Jacoby, The Age of
American Unreason, 25
2. Charles P. Pierce, Idiot
America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free (Anchor
Books, 2010)
3. Christine Leigh Heyrman, Department of History, University
of Delaware, “The First Great Awakening,” ©National Humanities Center, Accessed
April 22, 2025, https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/grawaken.htm
4. Susan Searls Giroux , “Between Race and Reason:
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life,” Stanford University Press, September
16, 2011, https://truthout.org/articles/between-race-and-reason-antiintellectualism-in-american-life/
5. “Public’s Views on Human Evolution,” Pew Research Center, December
30, 2013, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/
5a. “Public Divided on Origins
of Life: Religion A Strength and Weakness for
Both Parties,” Pew Research Center, August 30, 2005, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2005/08/30/public-divided-on-origins-of-life/
6. A.C. Grayling, The God Argument: The Case Against
Religion and for Humanism (Bloomsbury, 2014) 111
7. Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science (Basic Books,
2005) p.12
8. Junk Science, Bought and Paid For: The Latest Anti-Vaccine
‘Study’ is a Political Stunt, By Andrea Love, Ph.D. and Katie Suleta — Feb 07,
2025, https://www.acsh.org/news/2025/02/07/junk-science-bought-and-paid-latest-anti-vaccine-study-political-stunt-49291
9. Science, Public Health Policy & the Law – Bias and
Credibility, "Overall, we rate Science, Public Health Policy & the Law
as a pseudoscience source based on the frequent publication of vaccine
misinformation to promote vaccine hesitancy. We also rate them Low for factual
reporting due to false claims and inappropriate claims of being
peer-reviewed." https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/science-public-health-policy-the-law-bias-and-credibility/
10. Michael Crichton, author of State of Fear, leaves global
warming disinformation legacy, https://whistleblower.org/politicization-of-climate-science/global-warming-denial-machine/michael-crichton-author-of-state-of-fear-leaves-global-warming-disinformation-legacy/
11. Philip Marcelo, “Elon Musk and others spread meme
reviving unfounded ‘pizzagate’ conspiracy theory,” November 29, 2023,
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-pizzagate-conspiracy-elon-musk-abc-657657139374
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