America dumbs down: A rising tide of anti-intellectual thinking | Hacker News Reader

America dumbs down: A rising tide of anti-intellectual thinking

macleans.ca

I'm highly educated (getting a PhD) and I disagree with the author on several points:

1. Climate change isn't very problematic.

2. The best way to counter mass shootings is for more good people to have guns.

3. Obamacare will exacerbate the existing problems because the same cause gives the same result and we've been socializing our healthcare for decades.

When self-proclaimed "intellectuals" treat issues that are not settled as dogma---you believe this, or you're stupid---it's no wonder Americans don't like intellectuals.

In fact, it is to Americans' credit.

That said, I even consider myself to be an intellectual---but I know I have to make rational arguments, not rely on dogma.

In closing, presuasion via dogma just gives the anti-eveolution dummies in the South Carolina legislature more excuse not to listen to you when you actually do make a rational argument---e.g. about evolution.

Wish I could upvote this more. You nailed three of the examples that I found most questionable in the article.

One thing I would add is that it's not just "self-proclaimed intellectuals" that treat issues that are not settled as dogma. Reputable scientists do it too, and that's a big reason why the average American doesn't trust scientists--not just politicians and the media, but actual scientists--to tell them the truth. I blogged about this some time back:

http://blog.peterdonis.com/opinions/science-heal-thyself.htm...

The article didn't ask the question of whether people think climate change is problematic, it asked the question of whether people believe it is man made.

The relevant quote is: "When it comes to global warming, only 33 per cent expressed a high degree of confidence that it is “man made,” something the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has declared is all but certain."

Indeed, that is slightly different question. But I have the same opinion of it.

1. We know that climate constantly changes over long periods---Big Ice Age, Little Ice Age, various warm periods with dinosaurs in them, etc.

2. Ask anybody who is old if they've seen perceptible climate change in their particular area. Yes, there's weather, but the climate in NYC, Phoenix, San Francisco, and N for any place, is the same that it was 100 years ago.

We also know that any scientist who comes out against climate change is ostracized and that it's career suicide, and we've seen it happen. And we know that climate change is a dogma for the left. That is why I rely on direct perceptual evidence (per 1 and 2) instead of "what scientists say" on this.

Actually, I always rely on perceptual evidence---but having nukes and airplanes backs up the physicists, having telescopes backs up the astronomers, and so on. I have no opinion on matters of science for which I have no access to perceptual information (e.g. string theory).

"I always rely on perceptual evidence"

so you are anti-intellectual.. or are you just trolling?

To believe something without perceptual eveidence is to believe it blindly, just because somebody says so.

We should not believe our intellectuals blindly, just because they say so.

But that isn't an anti-intellectual stance.

An anti-intellectual attitude would willfully dismiss what intellectuals say even when they do present perceptual evidence.

As an aside, note that it is perceptual evidence that intellectuals rely on themselves to get their conclusions. This is particularly obvious in science (e.g. experimental method), but all actual knowledge is knowledge about reality and that means all actual knowledge is rooted in perceptual evidence.

I like how somebody downvoted this, but didn't bother to correct the mistake the presumably believed they saw in my reasoning.

That is anti-intellectualism.

Well done for successfully confirming the article.

So you can't make a rational argument about where I have made a mistake in my thinking?

Yet you will condemn my thinking anyway?

So you are willing to condemn based on your own prior beliefs, emotions or desires that you cannot actually validate?

That is anti-intellectual.

That is punishing virtue.

That is failing to think and reason.

That is what is destroying the world today.

I took a degree in Philosophy - I'm anything but anti-intellectual. Being intellectual doesn't mean feeding the trolls or suffering fools. I don't bother seriously debating the people who knock on my door to ask me about Jesus nor do I see fit to waste breath on climate change deniers or gun nuts: they're all religious beliefs of one stripe or another.

Javert says (amongst other things): 3. Obamacare will exacerbate the existing problems because the same cause gives the same result and we've been socializing our healthcare for decades.

I am aware of Medicare (65 years old and up as I recall), Medicaid (indigent) and I think Massachusetts has a state-based initiative that came from a Republican administration. Is this what you refer to as "socializing for decades"? If you have other examples of this, please cite...

Let me excerpt from an article (link below).

"The Blues lobbied and convinced the states to treat them as nonprofit charity corporations rather than “for-profit” insurance companies, on the grounds that they were organized by doctors and hospitals. The Blues also requested and received tax-exempt status from the federal government. In return for their nonprofit status, the Blues agreed to offer health insurance on the basis of “community rating,” which meant that every customer would pay the same premium, regardless of age, sex, health history, lifestyle choices, or regional demographics.11 (This was occasionally modified to reflect different premiums for age and location and was then called “modified community rating.”)"

As described in the article, the Blues then got legislation that made it so all companies had to bulk purchase healthcare for their employees from---you guessed it---the Blues.

Of course other companies have learned how to get in on the gravy train in the meantime.

So yeah, it's been (poorly) socialized medicine for decades and decades, and that was in fact the reason the Blues were granted special priviliges---in turn everyone got the same care, no matter what it cost, paid by their employer.

Of course it was imperfect in that (1) it only socializes medicine for the employed and their families (imagine that!) and (2) it's ruined American healthcare already.

[1] http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/winter-2007/moral...

By the way, doctors always bill using Medicare coding standards. The reason I can't talk to a doctor about my general health is because there is no Medicare code for that so he can't bill for it. I haven't seen a general practitioner in years.

So you're arguing that medicine is socialised in the US because it's provided by privately owner and run charities? Really?

The big insurance companies are legal monopolies that function by favorable lawmaking. They do the bidding of the government, and in return, the government does their bidding. It's effectively a patron-client relationship.

So, the point is: they are essentially organs of the state.

The large US telecoms are a similar example.

So, yes, because the insurers are state organs that guarantee everyone pays an equally high price to to subsidize everyone else, it is socialized medicine.

Of course, this system cannot afford to give Americans the healthcare they demand (just as people in, say, Germany cannot get unlimited plastic surgery on the public dime). Resources are always limited.

Moreover, it's only socialized medicine for the employed and their families.

So that's why they came up with Obamacare.

Obamacare will not fix the corporate cronyism, it will instead limit resources further by squeezing doctors and patients. We already have a doctor shortage in the US, and doctors are leaving the profession. There _will_ be a major medical crisis in this country in the next few decades.

I expect to be one of the fortunate ones who will be able to pay for private healthcare or, if that's basically outlawed, flee abroad.

Obama's legacy will be to create two separate health systems, one for the rich that is OK (but possibly not even located in the US), and one for the poor that is worse than what existed before.

Of course in the end this will be blamed not on Obmaa, but on capitalism---it will be claimed that the rich are exploiting the poor, and that the rich just need to stop being so selfish. Further socialism will ensue.

Gun control isn't an intellectually enlightened policy, it's an example of liberal anti-intellectualism. Anti-intellectualism isn't a conservative-liberal issue, but the author is painting it that way.

Yes, this is one of the examples I found highly questionable.

This is usually what to expect when you see headlines about anti-intellectualism in the US. The extreme end of conservatism is certainly anti-intellectual and anti-science, but so is the extreme end of liberalism, and those examples are always swept under the rug or portrayed as being obvious. Where are the examples of rent control advocates, anti-GMO paranoia, anti-vaciine paranoia, etc.?

1. Maclean’s is a Canadian magazine, and it's a centre-right magazine (which would be centre-left in the U.S.).

2. The article mentioned anti-vaxxers as part of the overall anti-intellectual “movement” in the U.S.

This is someone else in the world observing how broken the U.S. has become over the last thirty years, and you contributing nothing to the discussion by saying it’s the “left ignoring its own problems”.

Most people in liberal democracies other than the United States would disagree with your assertion about gun control. Given per capita gun deaths in the United States relative to other liberal democracies, it'd be hard to disagree with them.

I'm quite convinced that pretty much everywhere else in the world, people would disagree with you. As a New Zealander, I can tell you that we think the US attitude towards guns is bordering on bat-shit insane.

That was a bit depressing.

I've had so many arguments in the last few years only to have my jaw drop when I hear this theme repeated over and over to me "But say there was a guy, who was in the situation you described, and say than instead of doing that, he did this..."

I mean, it's worse than anecdotal even. People are basing their viewpoints on hypothetical situations with no statistical evidence for their views and arguing against statistics with these hypothetical stories about nothing.

That resulted in my favorite tweet I've ever composed

"Arguing anecdotally screams religious reverence for ideas not referenced."

Boy, it just sounds so well composed (to me. Subjective).

And it also resulted in me not arguing with anyone anymore. I just plain don't do it.

Egypt and Iraq were once the centers of world learning. This should give pause to those considering that Boston and London will be bright lights of intellectualism forever.

Overall interesting. Some of the specific examples are questionable, but not enough to invalidate the overall point.

Related is this submission [1] from yesterday on how idiotic conspiracy theories are getting alarming traction.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7755572

I would say the specific examples are a very mixed bag. IMO the article should have just stuck with the data from national exams and surveys on relatively unproblematic things (like ordering North America, the U.S., California, and Los Angeles by size). That's quite sufficient to make the point; adding the questionable examples actually detracts from that.

So if you disagree with the author, then you're anti-intellectual.

What is the case against natural selection???

America is a great country not because Americans know more science, not at all.

Who the hell downvoted my comment? for what reason?

Downvoting should require justification.

A loser downvoted me again, as I predicted.

So, another loser?

Maybe I am wrong. The same loser?

Wow, very efficient.

New losers joined.

Funny. Another new loser joined.

Ugh: "...found that 42 per cent of Americans are “not too” or “not at all” confident that all life on Earth is the product of evolution. Similarly, 51 per cent of people expressed skepticism that the universe started with a “big bang” 13.8 billion years ago, and 36 per cent doubted the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years."

You know, I wouldn't pile those who are "not too" or have "expressed skepticism" with those who are completely opposed to the idea of evolution & the currently accepted age of Earth.

I mean, sure, evolution manifests itself in everything around ourselves, but that aside for a brief moment.

If your measure of "dumbness" is "anyone who doesn't unreservedly believe in evolution and the bing bang" then you're turning science into just another brand of religion.

I'd much prefer to interact with people who aren't too sure about either religion or about the current scientific viewpoint, rather than zealots on either side.

You see, the currently accepted scientific point tends to change over time (one of the benefits of science over religion I suppose). It was not long ago when black holes were described as having infinite density and zero volume. Few discoveries and math formulas later, turns out they far more likely stop collapsing at the size of their Schwarzschild radius.

So who is dumb now. The one who "believed" in zero volume black holes, the one who "believed" in no black holes, or the one who had the courage to doubt and seek answers?

Talking about zealots:

"Has the most powerful nation on Earth lost its mind?"

Emphasis mine. Give me a fucking break. The author may need a bit of smarting up on their own, it seems.

> It was not long ago when black holes were described as having infinite density and zero volume. Few discoveries and math formulas later, turns out they far more likely stop collapsing at the size of their Schwarzschild radius.

Reference please? This does not sound like a good description of the current best scientific theory on black holes.

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