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> As a scientist and educator, my goal, then, is not to become President and lead a dysfunctional electorate, but to enlighten the electorate so they might choo

by maratd 14y ago

> As a scientist and educator, my goal, then, is not to become President and lead a dysfunctional electorate, but to enlighten the electorate so they might choose the right leaders in the first place. This reeks of extreme arrogance. A type very common in academia. The presumption that the masses are ignorant, while you, anointed and blessed, are simply brilliant. No. If you get off your high-horse and actually talk to them, you'll find that they are just as brilliant as you, in their own ways. Our problems don't stem from the majority wallowing in ignorance. They are not ignorant. Our problems stem from divergent interests. What is in the interest of one, is not in the interest of his neighbor. The path to a healthier nation is in finding creative ways in resolving those conflicts of interest.

dsr_ 14y ago
Everybody has a prejudice or two without adequate basis in reality. Most people don't realize that they have prejudices. Of those who do, most don't bother to do test them further than inspecting a few cases of confirmation bias. It's not the ignorance or the intelligence of the American populace that upsets me. It's the inability to imagine that they might be wrong.
saraid216 14y ago
> The path to a healthier nation is in finding creative ways in resolving those conflicts of interest. That's the entire purpose of government and has been since the dawn of time. Even authoritarianism is a "creative way [to] resolve those conflicts of interest".
johnbender 14y ago
Based on my reading you're conflating ignorance with an apathy toward evidence and information based decision making. I agree with the author that most people lack the ability or desire (I'm not sure which) to _seek_ an objective reality even if it's unlikely a truly objective reality exists. I think this is what he characterizes as "scientifically literate". And while you can argue up and down that data can be used to mislead people just as easily as rhetoric, I'd prefer the latter to the former because at least then there's something tangible to discuss (methods for data collection, data presentation, etc).
jlgreco 14y ago
We have politicians who think all geologists are lying about the age of the earth and actually believe in a sort of divine manifest destiny. There comes a point where merely learning to resolve our differences is (although necessary) not sufficient. Some things (such as, for example, Democracy imho) require a baseline education and scientific literacy. You put crap into a democracy, you are going to get crap out. The process works pretty well for executing the will of the people, but it really does next to nothing as far as data sanitation goes; it simply was not designed to do that. (On the other hand, the constitution itself was designed to be a crap-filter of sorts. Instead of just putting every single issue to a vote, the constitutions makes some things unusually hard to push through. The first amendment is basically a filter to prevent the "will of the people" from being executing if it violates certain principles (of course a strong enough "will of the people" can remove these filters).)
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  There's a question to my mind as to how much of the posturing on evolution, anthropogenic global warming, resource depletion, age of the earth, etc., is based on true belief and how much is tactical stupidity. I could go either way on that. Many people are highly self-delusional.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    True. Some of these politicians may be "playing dumb" for political reasons. Though really that just makes it a question of if the politicians and their constituents are in need of a better education, or just their constituents. Whichever is the case, I think an increased emphasis on science education is important.
  - jeffool 14y ago
    I would agree, if we were just talking self-identified phone surveys or something. But we're talking about people saying their children shouldn't learn about those things. I can't imagine purposefully making your children grow up thinking something is so wrong, you are an immoral person to consider it, unless they genuinely believed it as well. So to call it tactical stupidity is messed up on a scale I'm not prepared to level at such a large number of my fellow citizens (as an American), or anyone really. I'd rather think someone willfully ignorant than that willfully mean.
hooande 14y ago
At the risk of being labelled as negative, I'm going to disagree. The majority of people just don't care. They don't care about politics, about science, about reason or about anything outside of their day to day lives and relationships. That's how it's supposed to be. As it turns out, the average person isn't brilliant, anointed or blessed (this is due to the meaning of the word "average"). Saying that everyone is "brilliant in their own way" is a cop out, a platitude that's no better than saying nothing at all. Intellectual curiousity, love of learning and scientific rigor are real things, and a large number of the humans on this planet don't possess them. If you object to the idea that Neil DeGrasse Tyson is more brilliant than most, then you're in danger of losing touch with reality. If NDT is showing any arrogance, it's in thinking that he has the ability to raise the level of public discourse. He's really smart, but apparently not smart enough to realize that no amount of education can change the basics of human nature. You can teach people how to think, but you can't make them like it. A laughably small number of americans vote in presidential, much less local elections. And many of those voters have only the shallowest understanding of the issues being decided upon. deGrasse Tyson has a point...education may be democracy's only hope. ASIDE: I'm noticing rampant selection bias on hn. It's important to remember that most of the people on this planet are nothing like us. Working at tech companies and hanging out at tech events it's easy to believe that everyone is as intelligent, reasonable and hard working as our family and coworkers. Most people just don't have the same love of learning and/or hacking that we do. While we value knowledge and intelligence above all, most humans don't and there's nothing wrong with that.
- saraid216 14y ago
  > If NDT is showing any arrogance, it's in thinking that he has the ability to raise the level of public discourse. He's really smart, but apparently not smart enough to realize that no amount of education can change the basics of human nature. You can teach people how to think, but you can't make them like it. I don't disagree with you here, per se, but I think a lot can be done with education. Maybe not "change the basics of human nature", but we can probably get them to enjoy thinking and we can probably raise the level of public discourse by a significant degree. I'm not saying it would be easy or quick, but I think that it's possible. Indeed, it seems to me to be the arc of history, to paraphrase a bit, even if it is irritatingly long.
drcube 14y ago
I think you're reading too much into it. The point is everybody hates (or at least complains about) their elected leaders, despite the fact that they keep electing them. Rather than complain, he chooses to educate. That is "arrogance"?
monochromatic 14y ago
The extent to which really obvious pandering is effective makes me disagree somewhat. There actually are a lot of very ignorant people.
incision 14y ago
>If you get off your high-horse and actually talk to them, you'll find that they are just as brilliant as you, in their own ways. Seems fairly unlikely that the majority the 200,000,000+ eligible voters are nearly as brilliant, in any way, as this particular astrophysicist who graduated from Harvard and earned a PhD at Columbia. >Our problems don't stem from the majority wallowing in ignorance. They are not ignorant. Our problems stem from divergent interests. What is in the interest of one, is not in the interest of his neighbor. The path to a healthier nation is in finding creative ways in resolving those conflicts of interest. Getting everyone to vote in the direction that's actually in their own best interests would be a huge step.
dredmorbius 14y ago
He's making a statement of goals consistent with his temperment and skill set. He's an educator and scientist. He has knowledge, knows how to process systematic knowledge (qualifications of a scientist). He can express and explain his knowledge, and enjoys doing so (qualifications of an educator). He's probably much less skilled and/or interested in politics, negotiating, electioneering, campaigning, and leading, all required of a politician / statesman. He may actually be able to do these things, but very likely dislikes doing them. I know that my own preferences and skills lean similarly, though I can fill a leadership role in a pinch / emergency situation. Arrogance need have nothing to do with it. Sounds much more like an accurate self-assessment in my book. As to the problems we're facing: some result from ignorance, some from tactical stupidity, and yes, many from divergent / conflicting interests. NdGT is suggesting his own ability/interest in negotiating such conflicts may be insufficient to fill a political role.
plaguuuuuu 14y ago
>The presumption that the masses are ignorant People are mind-bogglingly ignorant, and it is demonstrably so. I don't know how one could even claim otherwise. >If you get off your high-horse and actually talk to them, you'll find that they are just as brilliant as you, in their own ways. These ways obviously don't lend themselves to scientific literacy, knowledge of international politics or human rights, or rational appraisal of facts. Maybe an individual has an amazing ability to console those in distress - that's GREAT, but it doesn't grant them immunity from criticism for ignorance of important worldly issues. Frankly your attitude is typical of American "everyone is special" bullshit. In other cultures if you're uneducated you are looked down upon. While it's probably deeply unsettling to sensibilities that promote understanding and tolerating differences in individuals' capacities to contribute to society (which I do support), perhaps that outlook has some merit after all.
- pjscott 14y ago
  All voters are smart in the same tragically mythological way that all babies are beautiful, all soldiers brave, and all teachers competent.
paulovsk 14y ago
Hm... your comment sounded quite strange. Do you really know we're talking about NDT, right? One of the most hard-working scientists when it comes down to educate people. And you're saying this: > If you get off your high-horse and actually talk to them, you'll find that they are just as brilliant as you, in their own ways. That doesn't make any sense to me.
jeffool 14y ago
You say our problems stem from divergent interests, but yet what he speaks to here is our ability to observe objective truths, and to build our solutions on those. Our current system has no interest in building or finding solutions that help everyone, but instead in pushing their own agendas in the assumption that once "we" win, "they" will have to admit how right we were! He's saying that our subjective opinions of what the facts SHOULD be (often our very notion of what is in our best interest,) should be investigated until we come to an objective reality of what is in our best interests. He's saying science provides those answers if we can get beyond ourselves. He says we should not elect people only to chastise them for being both too smart, or too dumb. How, from that, do you get "he's saying we're dumb!" He's not saying someone is dumb, and someone is smart. He's saying as a scientist, it's his job to hunt for objective truths, and that as an educator, he seeks to teach everyone to find those truths. Should scientists and educators not... Educate and seek objective truths? Isn't that kind of the point in those professions? What's arrogant about that? What's EXTREMELY arrogant about that?
ryguytilidie 14y ago
Seems like quite a reach to simply say "no" to the idea of one of the greatest scientists of our time being more enlightened than the average person. Is this just a troll or are you being serious?

by maratd 14y ago

dsr_ 14y ago

Everybody has a prejudice or two without adequate basis in reality. Most people don't realize that they have prejudices. Of those who do, most don't bother to do test them further than inspecting a few cases of confirmation bias. It's not the ignorance or the intelligence of the American populace that upsets me. It's the inability to imagine that they might be wrong.

saraid216 14y ago

> The path to a healthier nation is in finding creative ways in resolving those conflicts of interest. That's the entire purpose of government and has been since the dawn of time. Even authoritarianism is a "creative way [to] resolve those conflicts of interest".

johnbender 14y ago

Based on my reading you're conflating ignorance with an apathy toward evidence and information based decision making. I agree with the author that most people lack the ability or desire (I'm not sure which) to _seek_ an objective reality even if it's unlikely a truly objective reality exists. I think this is what he characterizes as "scientifically literate". And while you can argue up and down that data can be used to mislead people just as easily as rhetoric, I'd prefer the latter to the former because at least then there's something tangible to discuss (methods for data collection, data presentation, etc).

jlgreco 14y ago

We have politicians who think all geologists are lying about the age of the earth and actually believe in a sort of divine manifest destiny. There comes a point where merely learning to resolve our differences is (although necessary) not sufficient. Some things (such as, for example, Democracy imho) require a baseline education and scientific literacy. You put crap into a democracy, you are going to get crap out. The process works pretty well for executing the will of the people, but it really does next to nothing as far as data sanitation goes; it simply was not designed to do that. (On the other hand, the constitution itself was designed to be a crap-filter of sorts. Instead of just putting every single issue to a vote, the constitutions makes some things unusually hard to push through. The first amendment is basically a filter to prevent the "will of the people" from being executing if it violates certain principles (of course a strong enough "will of the people" can remove these filters).)

dredmorbius 14y ago
There's a question to my mind as to how much of the posturing on evolution, anthropogenic global warming, resource depletion, age of the earth, etc., is based on true belief and how much is tactical stupidity. I could go either way on that. Many people are highly self-delusional.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  True. Some of these politicians may be "playing dumb" for political reasons. Though really that just makes it a question of if the politicians and their constituents are in need of a better education, or just their constituents. Whichever is the case, I think an increased emphasis on science education is important.
- jeffool 14y ago
  I would agree, if we were just talking self-identified phone surveys or something. But we're talking about people saying their children shouldn't learn about those things. I can't imagine purposefully making your children grow up thinking something is so wrong, you are an immoral person to consider it, unless they genuinely believed it as well. So to call it tactical stupidity is messed up on a scale I'm not prepared to level at such a large number of my fellow citizens (as an American), or anyone really. I'd rather think someone willfully ignorant than that willfully mean.

hooande 14y ago

At the risk of being labelled as negative, I'm going to disagree. The majority of people just don't care. They don't care about politics, about science, about reason or about anything outside of their day to day lives and relationships. That's how it's supposed to be. As it turns out, the average person isn't brilliant, anointed or blessed (this is due to the meaning of the word "average"). Saying that everyone is "brilliant in their own way" is a cop out, a platitude that's no better than saying nothing at all. Intellectual curiousity, love of learning and scientific rigor are real things, and a large number of the humans on this planet don't possess them. If you object to the idea that Neil DeGrasse Tyson is more brilliant than most, then you're in danger of losing touch with reality. If NDT is showing any arrogance, it's in thinking that he has the ability to raise the level of public discourse. He's really smart, but apparently not smart enough to realize that no amount of education can change the basics of human nature. You can teach people how to think, but you can't make them like it. A laughably small number of americans vote in presidential, much less local elections. And many of those voters have only the shallowest understanding of the issues being decided upon. deGrasse Tyson has a point...education may be democracy's only hope. ASIDE: I'm noticing rampant selection bias on hn. It's important to remember that most of the people on this planet are nothing like us. Working at tech companies and hanging out at tech events it's easy to believe that everyone is as intelligent, reasonable and hard working as our family and coworkers. Most people just don't have the same love of learning and/or hacking that we do. While we value knowledge and intelligence above all, most humans don't and there's nothing wrong with that.

saraid216 14y ago
> If NDT is showing any arrogance, it's in thinking that he has the ability to raise the level of public discourse. He's really smart, but apparently not smart enough to realize that no amount of education can change the basics of human nature. You can teach people how to think, but you can't make them like it. I don't disagree with you here, per se, but I think a lot can be done with education. Maybe not "change the basics of human nature", but we can probably get them to enjoy thinking and we can probably raise the level of public discourse by a significant degree. I'm not saying it would be easy or quick, but I think that it's possible. Indeed, it seems to me to be the arc of history, to paraphrase a bit, even if it is irritatingly long.

drcube 14y ago

I think you're reading too much into it. The point is everybody hates (or at least complains about) their elected leaders, despite the fact that they keep electing them. Rather than complain, he chooses to educate. That is "arrogance"?

monochromatic 14y ago

The extent to which really obvious pandering is effective makes me disagree somewhat. There actually are a lot of very ignorant people.

incision 14y ago

>If you get off your high-horse and actually talk to them, you'll find that they are just as brilliant as you, in their own ways. Seems fairly unlikely that the majority the 200,000,000+ eligible voters are nearly as brilliant, in any way, as this particular astrophysicist who graduated from Harvard and earned a PhD at Columbia. >Our problems don't stem from the majority wallowing in ignorance. They are not ignorant. Our problems stem from divergent interests. What is in the interest of one, is not in the interest of his neighbor. The path to a healthier nation is in finding creative ways in resolving those conflicts of interest. Getting everyone to vote in the direction that's actually in their own best interests would be a huge step.

dredmorbius 14y ago

He's making a statement of goals consistent with his temperment and skill set. He's an educator and scientist. He has knowledge, knows how to process systematic knowledge (qualifications of a scientist). He can express and explain his knowledge, and enjoys doing so (qualifications of an educator). He's probably much less skilled and/or interested in politics, negotiating, electioneering, campaigning, and leading, all required of a politician / statesman. He may actually be able to do these things, but very likely dislikes doing them. I know that my own preferences and skills lean similarly, though I can fill a leadership role in a pinch / emergency situation. Arrogance need have nothing to do with it. Sounds much more like an accurate self-assessment in my book. As to the problems we're facing: some result from ignorance, some from tactical stupidity, and yes, many from divergent / conflicting interests. NdGT is suggesting his own ability/interest in negotiating such conflicts may be insufficient to fill a political role.

plaguuuuuu 14y ago

>The presumption that the masses are ignorant People are mind-bogglingly ignorant, and it is demonstrably so. I don't know how one could even claim otherwise. >If you get off your high-horse and actually talk to them, you'll find that they are just as brilliant as you, in their own ways. These ways obviously don't lend themselves to scientific literacy, knowledge of international politics or human rights, or rational appraisal of facts. Maybe an individual has an amazing ability to console those in distress - that's GREAT, but it doesn't grant them immunity from criticism for ignorance of important worldly issues. Frankly your attitude is typical of American "everyone is special" bullshit. In other cultures if you're uneducated you are looked down upon. While it's probably deeply unsettling to sensibilities that promote understanding and tolerating differences in individuals' capacities to contribute to society (which I do support), perhaps that outlook has some merit after all.

pjscott 14y ago
All voters are smart in the same tragically mythological way that all babies are beautiful, all soldiers brave, and all teachers competent.

paulovsk 14y ago

Hm... your comment sounded quite strange. Do you really know we're talking about NDT, right? One of the most hard-working scientists when it comes down to educate people. And you're saying this: > If you get off your high-horse and actually talk to them, you'll find that they are just as brilliant as you, in their own ways. That doesn't make any sense to me.

jeffool 14y ago

You say our problems stem from divergent interests, but yet what he speaks to here is our ability to observe objective truths, and to build our solutions on those. Our current system has no interest in building or finding solutions that help everyone, but instead in pushing their own agendas in the assumption that once "we" win, "they" will have to admit how right we were! He's saying that our subjective opinions of what the facts SHOULD be (often our very notion of what is in our best interest,) should be investigated until we come to an objective reality of what is in our best interests. He's saying science provides those answers if we can get beyond ourselves. He says we should not elect people only to chastise them for being both too smart, or too dumb. How, from that, do you get "he's saying we're dumb!" He's not saying someone is dumb, and someone is smart. He's saying as a scientist, it's his job to hunt for objective truths, and that as an educator, he seeks to teach everyone to find those truths. Should scientists and educators not... Educate and seek objective truths? Isn't that kind of the point in those professions? What's arrogant about that? What's EXTREMELY arrogant about that?

ryguytilidie 14y ago

Seems like quite a reach to simply say "no" to the idea of one of the greatest scientists of our time being more enlightened than the average person. Is this just a troll or are you being serious?