3 ms·

Wrong. The post did not say, some of the public feels this way, sadly wrong though they may be. It said it is this way. I only chose to respond because I fou

Wrong. The post did not say, some of the public feels this way, sadly wrong though they may be. It said it is this way. I only chose to respond because I found the “priestly caste” analogy to be utterly without foundation, but yet presented as if it was full of insight.

manfredo 8y ago
> I only chose to respond because I found the “priestly caste” analogy to be utterly without foundation, but yet presented as if it was full of insight. My point is that there is foundation in the public mind (which is almost certainly what the above poster was referring to).,
- mturmon 8y ago
  We are off-topic, in the way my original reply tried to bring out. But let's pursue this line of thinking. Your claim is that significant elements of the public scorn professors because they are perceived as, and act as, an elitist caste. I call BS on this as well. A large segment of academia is very devoted to public outreach, including by pop science TV/youtube, press releases, free in-person and video lectures, public outreach, blogging, and posting papers on arxiv. This is the best of academic culture. A sensible person can take advantage of this wealth of free knowledge. A bigoted person can invent some kind of culture war and play out stick figures in their head. I come from people who had greatly varying degrees of education. Many didn't go to college, some failed out. A couple are (or were, RIP) sometimes bigoted towards people who have specialized expertise and training, but aside from those very few, the vast majority have respect for specialized knowledge in general, and academia in particular. I think it does a great disservice to the common sense of that vast majority of non-academics, to suppose they are bigoted towards academia because of some kind of culture war stereotype.

3 ms·

Wrong. The post did not say, some of the public feels this way, sadly wrong though they may be. It said it is this way. I only chose to respond because I fou

by mturmon 8y ago

manfredo 8y ago
> I only chose to respond because I found the “priestly caste” analogy to be utterly without foundation, but yet presented as if it was full of insight. My point is that there is foundation in the public mind (which is almost certainly what the above poster was referring to).,
- mturmon 8y ago
  We are off-topic, in the way my original reply tried to bring out. But let's pursue this line of thinking. Your claim is that significant elements of the public scorn professors because they are perceived as, and act as, an elitist caste. I call BS on this as well. A large segment of academia is very devoted to public outreach, including by pop science TV/youtube, press releases, free in-person and video lectures, public outreach, blogging, and posting papers on arxiv. This is the best of academic culture. A sensible person can take advantage of this wealth of free knowledge. A bigoted person can invent some kind of culture war and play out stick figures in their head. I come from people who had greatly varying degrees of education. Many didn't go to college, some failed out. A couple are (or were, RIP) sometimes bigoted towards people who have specialized expertise and training, but aside from those very few, the vast majority have respect for specialized knowledge in general, and academia in particular. I think it does a great disservice to the common sense of that vast majority of non-academics, to suppose they are bigoted towards academia because of some kind of culture war stereotype.