The rot sets in...

[crfriend]

My dear wife sent me a graphic a few minutes ago containing an image of a young Carl Sagan and a comment he made on the then-current state of affairs. Since it was an image, and I know that at least one of us is visually impaired, I'll retype it here. Imagine Sagan's voice in the following. I had no problem doing so.

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

What have we become? My country landed men on the Moon and returned them safely to the Earth in 1969 -- 45 years ago. Today, it's probable that more believe the entire endeavor was faked on a sound-stage somewhere in an un-named desert than understand that it really happened.

Have the charlatans and pseudoscientists prevailed? Are we headed for another Dark Age where intellectuals will be reviled and persecuted because of their curiosity and intelligence? What of the glorious achievements of the past? Are those to be lost as well? Instead of pressing the very edges of understanding of the universe, are we to go back to debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? (Or whether a camel can fit through the eye of a needle?)

I read Sagan's commentary above and began to cry because of it. Not just because he stated the argument so powerfully, simply, and, yes, beautifully, but because the decay continues apace. For Dr. Sagan's sake, I am glad he's gone; he'd be heartbroken in the world we now have. Rest in peace, Carl, and know that there are still a few who try to carry the torch, not just for heat, but for illumination.

[Jack Williams]

Not sure how to respond to that as I watch no TV but there is certainly plenty of well informed content in "New Scientist" magazine. But then, it is a British magazine..
Something that gets up my nose is political correctness, which reduces the amount of information in a given statement.

[john62]

When the only important thing is the amount of profit made, and those at the top make most of the money then everything else, education, science, art, etc is lost and like the USA Australia is going down hill just as fast. Here it appears the most important things are how much alcohol you consume, sport and avoiding responsibility for your actions.

John

[couyalair]

Come and join us here in Europe, Carl.
While our economy has been ruined, I don't feel we're headed back into the dark ages. There may be many euro-sceptics, but I don't think people distrust scientists as much as they distrust bankers and politicians. Churches are empty, and where there is religious activity, it is more of a pantomime than a way of life. In most places religion does not affect education any more (I'm not sure about eastern Europe, to tell the truth)..
We even have a few respected scientists on radio and tv. Some, such as André Brahic, are outspoken about incompetent governments, pointing out that when we get scientists into parliament, then there may be far less trouble than we have at present with arts, letters and economics dominating the scene.

Science is doing quite well here, except for the disgraceful lack of funding.

Martin
(if you understand French, do look for André Brahic on you tube; he's the French Sagan with quick wit and a twinkle in his eye)

[Sinned]

It appears that the radical science is being done outside of the US now. That big collider thingy is in Europe and there's talk of a space terminal for Scotland for the space tourists. The manned exploration seems to be coming from China and India among others and there's talk of a manned expedition to Mars coming from outside the US. I do think that in a lot of respects intellectually we are becoming lazy and not passing on the skills to the next generation. Are we going backwards - perhaps in some ways. The knowledge explosion is happening but are we even teaching our kids to read, write and add up never mind debate the merits of spending extortionate amounts looking for little particles to prove theories.

[dillon]

I'm not certain that "space tourism" qualifies as actual science, and if any of these space ventures get off the ground (no pun intended) they will be nothing more than a social club for the super-rich, and hardly comparable to a quarter century of shuttle flights. There are many of us who think more essential learning has been accomplished by unmanned missions at a fraction of the cost. I have no problem with the Chinese visiting the moon, as we did forty plus years ago. It belongs to the planet, and not just the US.

It also appears that the greater world is not especially aware of the scope of science, both applied and theoretical that is conducted in the US. The detractors tend to look at the worst examples of failures in education here, and ignore the immense success we have had. In my own family my daughter is an advanced student in the NCSU College of Textiles, the foremost textile school in the world. If any of you ever require a synthetic artery, it will likely have been made at NCSU, where his life-saving device was invented. Thousands are made in this college each year, and given away for free in nearly every nation on earth as a humanitarian endeavor.

And my son is a student at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, a residential high school for gifted science and math students of the state. It is tuition-free, and very competitive for admission. But I think the real demonstration of the strength of science, both in public institutions and private industry are the tens of thousands of the best and brightest students from around the world who seek to immigrate to the US. That includes my own wife, PhD educated, and a naturalized citizen.

Some see the test tube as half-empty, but I think it is half full of a bright and growing future.

[crfriend]

I'm not certain that "space tourism" qualifies as actual science, and if any of these space ventures get off the ground (no pun intended) they will be nothing more than a social club for the super-rich, and hardly comparable to a quarter century of shuttle flights. There are many of us who think more essential learning has been accomplished by unmanned missions at a fraction of the cost. I have no problem with the Chinese visiting the moon, as we did forty plus years ago. It belongs to the planet, and not just the US.

Indeed, "space tourism" won't contribute much to the greater understanding of the universe around us, and I concur with your thesis that we do better using robotic explorers than we would using humans in that role.

Milfmog and I have conversed on that topic, sometimes slightly heatedly, but robots are better for the task than humans in the long haul, and that's the way we should go. The only reason we flew humans to the moon and back was due to the fact that the machines weren't up to the task at the time -- we needed human intelligence and mobility to meet the challenge (and the challenge was explicitly, "fly men to the moon and return them safely to the Earth") in the timeframe specified. But, WOW what a challenge and what an inspiration to a new generation of engineers!

It also appears that the greater world is not especially aware of the scope of science, both applied and theoretical that is conducted in the US. The detractors tend to look at the worst examples of failures in education here, and ignore the immense success we have had. In my own family my daughter is an advanced student in the NCSU College of Textiles, the foremost textile school in the world. If any of you ever require a synthetic artery, it will likely have been made at NCSU, where his life-saving device was invented. Thousands are made in this college each year, and given away for free in nearly every nation on earth as a humanitarian endeavor.

Thanks for that input, as I am one of the frequent detractors of what the education system seems to have become in the USA. I need to dig a bit deeper as most of what I have is local exposure to what's on offer in my own neighbourhood that's supposed to set the next generation on a path to do great things.

Some see the test tube as half-empty, but I think it is half full of a bright and growing future.

I wish both of your children the very best, and hope they have bright and fulfilling futures ahead of them!

However, from where I sit, it's a pretty dismal picture. I'd love to be proved wrong in my outlook in every way.

On the bright side of things, one of our "little" robotic explorers has transited into interstellar space recently, and her sister-ship will likely do the same in the not-too-distant future. I've been following the Voyagers since they launched back in 1977, and it's been a positively amazing journey! How poor would we be as a species if we never questioned the world around us or showed the slightest curiosity about it? Actually, I don't want to contemplate that last question as it's to depressing to imagine.

[Tor]

...as I am one of the frequent detractors of what the education system seems to have become in the USA.

Have you ever read the works of John Taylor Gatto? Probably one of the best writers yet on compulsory "education", focused mostly on US schools where he taught (in NYC) for 30 years and won NY teacher of the year twice. In case you are wondering, you won't find any glowing praise of the system - except for the rare teacher who is willing to teach around the system. Weapons of Mass Instruction is a recent work, and one of his best. Another excellent work is Dumbing us Down.

[crfriend]

...as I am one of the frequent detractors of what the education system seems to have become in the USA.

Have you ever read the works of John Taylor Gatto? Probably one of the best writers yet on compulsory "education", focused mostly on US schools where he taught (in NYC) for 30 years and won NY teacher of the year twice.

A cursory look at the subject matter rather reflects my shock and revulsion when exposed to some parts of the curriculum that I was being taught when I was still in secondary school which I shouldn't have had access to (Yes, even back then I stuck my nose in things, sometimes in places where it wasn't welcome, but that's what a curious mind does.). I came away from the notion that the primary purpose of "teaching" "American History" was to "reinforce that the US ideology is superior in all ways to all others". (or something to that effect because that was the way it was written down; I was positively appalled, even though I was but in my teens at the time.)

That having been said, compulsory education -- done well -- is a benefit to mankind. Universal literacy and numeracy is important in the modern world, and I salute the founding fathers of the USA for enshrining it; however, what it has become in the intervening years would likely render the notion unrecognizable to those same founding fathers.

By my recollection from the late 1970s (when I finished off my "service to the State") critical thinking was not on the list of required or encouraged subjects, but was fostered by a few "renegade" teachers who actively encouraged and challenged students to actively question each and every idea that came at them, usually from the Mass Media. I owe my very existence today to three such teachers, one in primary school and two in secondary, else I'd be yet another "Homer Simpson" mindlessly plodding my way from doughnut to doughnut.

Is the system broken? Absolutely! When the raison d'etre is indoctrination then the thing is entirely and incontrovertibly bankrupt. The only defence is the occasional "renegade"; I got very lucky that I managed to encounter three. Very lucky indeed. Thanks John, Rod, and John; you put me on a good trajectory.

[dillon]

A lot of people have written on the state of education, and its deterioration, its inability to compete with other economies in the world. The thing most of the statistics-laden treatises share is the minimization of the way in which the economy has changed, and the extent to which two decades of rapant economic growth, the period of 1988 to 2008, changed our expectations of our own future fortunes.

Consider the transition of what was once a manufacturing based economy into a so-called service economy. In our lives, we have seen the decline of good-paying unionized factory jobs which required little more than the ability to read and do a bit of addition. We have seen the average family once able to prosper from a single wage earner now require both partners to work in order to make ends meet.

Education has done well to keep pace, and it remains an uphill battle to deal with students who come from a family background where the crucial importance of learning is either not understood or not valued. I came through a school that would today be considered a failing school; and as I watched the things my own children were learning, I came to see that even in "second-rate" schools here in semi-rural NC, kids were learning things in early grades that I did not learn until as much as three grades later. If our schools are failing, it is because the world has changed faster than we as a society were prepared to contend.

The biggest obstacle we face to having schools that can generate well-rounded, well-prepared graduates is the new climate of political conservatism that promises the angry puppets of Mr. Murdock's propaganda machine that they can have something for nothing. The people most in need of education are those who would trust an elite political pseudo-intellectual mindset that is philosophically opposed to public schools to fix the deficiencies of those public schools.

But I digress from my rant. The point I wanted to make is that schools must compete with distracting entertainent media, disinterested parents, and grandstanding, finger-pointing politicians to try to accomplish their mission in an era of insufficient budgets and a rapidly changing economy that changes its demands for a workforce on an annual basis. Given these stresses on the system, I think it has done fairly well not to collapse entirely. The great irony is that most parents surveyed will say that schools are in crisis, but that the local school their own kids attend is quite satisfactory. I just wonder how much of our disdain for the state of public education is simply driven by the negative things we hear and read, and if our expectations are in fact reasonable?

[john62]

I think that Western Culture has reached its pinnacle and is now in decline for multiple reasons, as happens with all empires and cultures, what will happen now this that Asia(India/China and others) will become the next superpowers and we will be taken over by them and have to play to their tune what ever that may be.

John

[crfriend]

The biggest obstacle we face to having schools that can generate well-rounded, well-prepared graduates is the new climate of political conservatism that promises the angry puppets of Mr. Murdock's propaganda machine that they can have something for nothing. The people most in need of education are those who would trust an elite political pseudo-intellectual mindset that is philosophically opposed to public schools to fix the deficiencies of those public schools.

Actually, the biggest obstacle we face is that is it precisely those "well-rounded, well-prepared" graduates that constitute a very real and present danger to the New Establishment which is entirely and totally focused on the concentration of wealth and the "unfortunate by-product" of the utter destruction, or at least impoverishment, of the middle class. Intelligent, quizzical, and critical-thinking youngsters are going to see through the lies that ensnared their parents in a heartbeat, and that Cannot Be Tolerated. So they are, instead, forcibly dumbed down by the institution -- even when the institution by all measure -- that of the Test -- is extolled for its progress and capability. "No Child left Behind" was a positive triumph for the American Taleban in that regard. I remain thankful for a few "renegade" teachers who had the guts to buck the system and actually nurture my ability to think on my own and not just regurgitate doctrine.

But I digress from my rant. The point I wanted to make is that schools must compete with distracting entertainent media, disinterested parents, and grandstanding, finger-pointing politicians to try to accomplish their mission in an era of insufficient budgets and a rapidly changing economy that changes its demands for a workforce on an annual basis.

In this regard, I think too much emphasis is placed upon the parents who are likely both going full-throttle just trying to keep their financial heads above water in what has largely become a futile effort for most; the resources aren't there to work 12-hour days and then to nurture creative and critical thinking on the part of the children. The "entertainment media" today is a rough analogue of crack cocaine -- all rush and no substance; what needs to be done is to solidly ground the notions that are taught in the schools in what actually happens in the real world around the young. In that manner, curiosity is fostered and creative thinking and critical thinking quite naturally come on their own to be later nurtured and developed.

However, as mentioned above, the system has a natural and critical aversion to actually encouraging people to think about what's going on, because once folks start thinking about it they'll start to ask inconvenient questions. What happens, say, when enough folks start to question the farce that is the "Service Economy" (which I recognised prima-facie for what it was in the 1980s). We cannot tolerate that!

To loop this back onto something even remotely on-topic, "What does creative thought and intelligence have to do with blokes in skirts?" I'd posit that it's the smart guys who can still think on their own that not only actively question the rationale of general society, but who are also courageous (or nuts) enough to actively challenge long-held notions.

[Tor]

That having been said, compulsory education -- done well -- is a benefit to mankind. Universal literacy and numeracy is important in the modern world, and I salute the founding fathers of the USA for enshrining it; however, what it has become in the intervening years would likely render the notion unrecognizable to those same founding fathers

To ensure basic literacy I'll agree is a good thing. Whether this can be done indefinitely through what approximates a single near universal entity (considering only the US for now), I remain highly skeptical. I haven't looked it up lately, but one thing Gatto mentions is that the early (pre-compulsory schooling) American literacy rate was near universal - the number I want to pull out is 97%. Between the introduction of compulsory schooling and the (IIRC) Korean war (might be Vietnam), there were so many people failing to show sufficient literacy to read basic signs required to be in the military that a study was launched - and the people were found not to be faking their complete illiteracy.

In his works Gatto does an excellent job of laying out how this was largely a designed effect of compulsory schooling. The system we have was brought over from Prussia - a system intended to maintain a hierarchy rather than a free people. Any literacy attained can, more reasonably than one would like to think, be considered a fringe benefit to a system designed to produce factory workers who don't think. I have personally seen more than once the uptake of years worth of k-12 classes on a subject in a couple weeks of somewhat intensive work at a time of interest on the part of the student. This also leaves time for developing critical thinking, "extra-curricular" activities (that may be of far more future benefit than almost all of school), a sense of self, and other qualities unneeded in factory workers.

While I did leave school before middle school, I am not at all sure that I use /anything/ I learned in school on a regular basis. Perhaps some aspects of arithmetic, and a few bits of punctuation and grammar - though I doubt I would have picked up any less without school altogether. Certainly nothing I wouldn't, much less couldn't, have learned through another means.

[Sinned]

I am not typical in that I attended what I now realise was an excellent Grammar School with brilliant teachers. Those of us who had the interest were taught to think. In the subject of Chemistry I showed aptitude ( and it was recognised at the time that the next year's intake would exceed the maximum class size in the subject ) and I was entered into the Ordinary Level examination a year earlier than normal. I also had a father that had a really good intellect and although he grew up in London during the war and didn't have the opportunities like what I had ( an in-joke for all M&W fans ) he was able to keep up with me and pose some really interesting viewpoints on things. I think that we on this site are not representative which can be discerned from the technical and insightful posts that are on this site. Hence we can appreciate the gender alternative clothing that we wear and recognise when we have gone out of out comfort zone. The Walmatians are an example of people who just don't HAVE a comfort zone.

[Grok]

I think that Western Culture has reached its pinnacle and is now in decline for multiple reasons, as happens with all empires and cultures, what will happen now this that Asia(India/China and others) will become the next superpowers and we will be taken over by them and have to play to their tune what ever that may be.

John

Samuel Huntington warned about this in "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order."