I’ve almost finished Susan Jacoby’s book titled the Age of American Unreason. There are a few passages that wanted to make me stand up and cheer and qualified themselves as sharing material on the blog. Of course, I can never find them when I want to do the actual transcription, but here is one quote from the chapter on “junk thought’ stating how important grounding in scientific principles are.
“It ought to be unnecessary to have to state that scientific literacy and respect for the scientific method should not be equated with blind trust in experts and scientists and that antagonism toward evidence based science should not be confused with an entirely healthy concern about the need for ethical oversight of scientific research. But junk-thought has become so pervasive in the United States that as soon as someone criticized, say, religion-based restriction on stem cell research, the hucksters of illogic inevitably remind the public about Nazi doctors who performed cruel and scientifically useless experiments on human subjects; about Lysenkoist biology in the Soviet Union; and, last but not least, about the false and widely publicized claims of successful embryonic cloning by South Korean researches. The last were of course exposed by other scientists, because all real scientific research must be and is subjected to rigorous scrutiny by peers. That is what separates science for pseudoscience and junk thought. Without a basic understanding of what constitutes good science, neither ordinary citizens nor the politicians that represent them can hope to make thoughtful judgments separating quacks, con men, and practitioners of bad science from thoughtful experts whose advice ought to be taken seriously.”
-Excerpt from Susan Jacoby’s The Age of American Unreason. p.230
7 comments
June 24, 2013 at 8:17 am
john zande
Now that quote is a keeper!
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June 24, 2013 at 10:09 am
The Arbourist
@JZ
It is one of the problems that I encounter frequently when arguing with people in meatspace and the internet. Somewhere along the line the capacity to differentiate between bunky-bullshit and good arguments was either never formed or has withered away.
I realize that coming from a radical background (women are people, democratic socialism ftw, and lack of belief in the sky daddy) that it has been necessary to work on the formation and composition of my thought so I’m not immediately shouted down, but similar demands must be felt when expressing ‘correct’ thought so one doesn’t give the impression that “Dick and Jane” is on their reading list.
The other point that comes to mind when I read the quote is that, as a teacher, the curriculum in its present state (here in Alberta, Canada) does very little toward teaching critical analysis and thought.
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June 24, 2013 at 11:41 am
syrbal
Sadly, the other side thinks shouting someone down IS the equivalent of critical thought. I am in the midst of my “fiction only” reading year, trying to de-stress from some personal stuff that has been tsunami swamping me for a couple years….I don’t think I could read this book right now w/o my brain blowing like Old Faithful!
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June 24, 2013 at 12:53 pm
bleatmop
I remember my first year of university and hearing about how nurses are critical thinkers and its our most important skill. Unfortunately I was never taught this skill in our Alberta high schools. What’s worse is that they never taught it in university either. It was more of the same as far as my education went; that is to say route memorization and being able to regurgitate the teachers notes word for word took you much further than thinking anything through.
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June 26, 2013 at 6:40 pm
The Arbourist
@Syrbal
I recently tried a little fiction and I really enjoyed it as I’ve been exclusively non-fiction as of late. If you like fantasy, The Name of the Wind by Rothfuss is really good. :)
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June 26, 2013 at 7:21 pm
syrbal
I’m currently going full tilt finding and reading Iain M. Banks “Culture” novels….now awaiting library loans since our retarded county system gets rid of fiction over a certain age. So they have his last FOUR out of NINE, but not the first five. Fantasy I am very, very picky about, if it steps outside the normal lines of reasonable…I can’t bear it. Game of Thrones gave me a headache in one book….
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June 29, 2013 at 11:41 am
The Arbourist
@Bleatmop
Critical thinking is hard. It is skill that I acquired after my University years and is still in need of a great deal of honing.
The problem is that I don’t think that you can really be ‘taught’ to use your faculties properly, but rather the need for clear thought and rationality must present itself and force you to do the gritty boring legwork necessary to achieve clarity of thought.
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