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I think the anti-intellectual sentiment is a bit broader. I'd define it as, "Those people who studied this their whole lives and have degrees and papers in jou

I think the anti-intellectual sentiment is a bit broader. I'd define it as, "Those people who studied this their whole lives and have degrees and papers in journals don't know more about this topic than I do." The anti-intellectual movement is the belief that everyone is biased, and since everyone is biased their scientific position is no more correct than mine. This started more than a decade ago, and I used to joke that one day people would say, "Science and Nature are left wing rags". About three months ago I actually had a debate where someone said almost exactly that -- "All those papers published in science journals are by Democrats!" I love self-education (although I'm of the camp that believes all education is self-education, even when you go to college) -- but the anti-intellectual movement is taking a fringe left-wing pursuit from the 60s (relativism) and making it mainstream for the right-wing in this century.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
"Those people who studied this their whole lives and have degrees and papers in journals don't know more about this topic than I do." Insofar as it pertains to this conversation, that isn't the belief. The belief regarding college is "I can learn just as well by reading books written by the top experts as I can from listening to third rate experts talk about the topic in person."
- kenjackson 15y ago
  I'm not really sure what you mean. The person who posted the anti-intellectual comment was speaking about the growing tide in the US, which is very much about what I posted. With respect to the article directly, it's really not about reading books written by top experts vs lectures from third rate experts -- unless he's reading CLR or Papadimitriou or Ullman. Really the article is about vocational education vs a liberal arts education. The complaint isn't, "My harmonic analysis professor clearly doesn't have the understanding of a Terrence Tao". The argument is more like, "In school I'm learning about organic chemistry and b-trees, but what I really want to learn is how to use this new framework to talk to this NoSQL store to display data in this web view. Where's that class?"
paulhauggis 15y ago
"Those people who studied this their whole lives and have degrees and papers in journals don't know more about this topic than I do." Just because you've studied something your entire life doesn't make you right 100% of the time. "All those papers published in science journals are by Democrats!" The problem? Many scientific studies are also political in nature and slant to one way, which is why I start to question many of them. I can see the bias 10 miles away and most people just read it as fact. You make it sound almost like a religion: I'm not to question the supreme leader (people who are smarter than I am because they've studied a topic their entire lives), I just need to follow it. I will never think this way. Sorry. I am in no way anti-intellectual. I just refuse to be force-fed things by people claiming to be smarter than me.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  The problem paul is that this same level of criticality isn't enforced uniformly. Many, if not most, of those same people who doubt anything that comes out of Harvard, MIT, or CalTech as Democratic propaganda will cite Rush Limbaugh as a reputable authority on virtually anything. CalTech says that a certain nuclear facility has problems, Limbaugh counters by saying, "If that was the case why are most of the people in the nearby city still born with 10 fingers. Clearly those at CalTech are lying." I don't know if Wiles did or did not prove FLT. I've seen the proof, don't understand it. Do I believe it -- I believe that a good faith convincing effort has been made. For most things I know in life that is also what I believe. I haven't confirmed really anything about the periodic table or much about quantum physics our sun or even more basic things like the gravitational pull of things not as large as the Earth. I do generally believe what others have told me (and the fact that they "say" they've done experiments), especially if they have a history of telling me things that are consistent with other things in my life. And to be clear it's not about people claiming to be smarter than you. It's about people who have consistently shown that they know more than you do about a specific topic. Of course if you must prove using standard levels of scientific proof everything all over again then I'd love to see your lab where you've done this work. It must be huge.
  - paulhauggis 15y ago

yummyfajitas 15y ago

"Those people who studied this their whole lives and have degrees and papers in journals don't know more about this topic than I do." Insofar as it pertains to this conversation, that isn't the belief. The belief regarding college is "I can learn just as well by reading books written by the top experts as I can from listening to third rate experts talk about the topic in person."

kenjackson 15y ago
I'm not really sure what you mean. The person who posted the anti-intellectual comment was speaking about the growing tide in the US, which is very much about what I posted. With respect to the article directly, it's really not about reading books written by top experts vs lectures from third rate experts -- unless he's reading CLR or Papadimitriou or Ullman. Really the article is about vocational education vs a liberal arts education. The complaint isn't, "My harmonic analysis professor clearly doesn't have the understanding of a Terrence Tao". The argument is more like, "In school I'm learning about organic chemistry and b-trees, but what I really want to learn is how to use this new framework to talk to this NoSQL store to display data in this web view. Where's that class?"

paulhauggis 15y ago

"Those people who studied this their whole lives and have degrees and papers in journals don't know more about this topic than I do." Just because you've studied something your entire life doesn't make you right 100% of the time. "All those papers published in science journals are by Democrats!" The problem? Many scientific studies are also political in nature and slant to one way, which is why I start to question many of them. I can see the bias 10 miles away and most people just read it as fact. You make it sound almost like a religion: I'm not to question the supreme leader (people who are smarter than I am because they've studied a topic their entire lives), I just need to follow it. I will never think this way. Sorry. I am in no way anti-intellectual. I just refuse to be force-fed things by people claiming to be smarter than me.

kenjackson 15y ago
The problem paul is that this same level of criticality isn't enforced uniformly. Many, if not most, of those same people who doubt anything that comes out of Harvard, MIT, or CalTech as Democratic propaganda will cite Rush Limbaugh as a reputable authority on virtually anything. CalTech says that a certain nuclear facility has problems, Limbaugh counters by saying, "If that was the case why are most of the people in the nearby city still born with 10 fingers. Clearly those at CalTech are lying." I don't know if Wiles did or did not prove FLT. I've seen the proof, don't understand it. Do I believe it -- I believe that a good faith convincing effort has been made. For most things I know in life that is also what I believe. I haven't confirmed really anything about the periodic table or much about quantum physics our sun or even more basic things like the gravitational pull of things not as large as the Earth. I do generally believe what others have told me (and the fact that they "say" they've done experiments), especially if they have a history of telling me things that are consistent with other things in my life. And to be clear it's not about people claiming to be smarter than you. It's about people who have consistently shown that they know more than you do about a specific topic. Of course if you must prove using standard levels of scientific proof everything all over again then I'd love to see your lab where you've done this work. It must be huge.
- paulhauggis 15y ago