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But SD Moderate directs our attention toward the kind of loony anti-intellectualism that shows Ben Stein is just another Hollywood actor trading in celebrity and sound bites. (Conservatives like to dish that line out about actors who advocate causes like electric cars and saving whales; it seems fair to apply the same attack to actors preaching the radical right-wing gospel, don't you think?)
National Review Online's blog excerpts an interview on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, in which the erstwhile erudite Stein boils down thousands of years of scientific progress into a single sentence: "Science leads you to killing people."
Right. Tell that to the folks in med school, or the architects designing earthquake-resistant buildings.
Actually, it all makes sense now: Ben Stein's performances in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Wonder Years were part of a quiet crusade to make education look fatally boring. Telling us science is about killing people fits right in.
Stein's rant echoes the absurd anti-intellectualism that some of our elected officials engage in to rationalize their failed policies. Kelsey at DakotaWomen points us toward a Daily Show clip that makes fun of the failed federal abstinence-only sex education policy. The segment includes this all too real quote from Rep. John Duncan of Tennessee, who responded to the testimony of health education experts before Congress Wednesday with the following:
It seems rather elitist to me for people who maybe have degrees in this field to feel that they, because they've studied, that somehow they know better than the parents.
"Elitist" must be the new orange for Republicans looking to dress up ignorance as principle. Duncan appears to join Stein in a perverse elitism of their own. They seem to be saying, "We don't know as much as others. We aren't experts. We don't get how the world works. Therefore, we are superior."
I thought the whole point of getting an education was to improve oneself. I thought having a degree was something to be proud of.
But maybe (and here's the Madville Times sweping generalization of the morning) this anti-intellectualism explains the dismal state of funding for education in South Dakota. Maybe our Republican governor and elected officials don't really think science and degrees are that important. If science brings money (high-income workers, federal research grants) to South Dakota, great. But education itself? The general public getting enlightened? Oh no, can't have that. Education is just for snooty elitists who want to kill people.
If we want our kids to excel in school, if we want them to beat the Chinese and Koreans on math and science tests, we need to tell them education matters. Comments like those from Stein and Duncan can only encourage kids to tune out their teachers and revel in their ignorance.
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Update 2008.05.12 09:35 CDT: Read Stanley Crouch's excellent commentary -- "'Elitist' Tag Knocks Education" -- on the value of education and the nonsense of crying "elitism!" at experts.
I don't think it's so much that people are anti-intellectual. It's that there are some people who are so arrogant in their "education" that they tend to be ignorant of other viewpoints, observations and opinions from other "non-educated" folks.
ReplyDeleteAnd I also think that there is some bias from these "educated" folk that somehow their opinions ARE better than those whose education ended at high school. And to be honest, I've known quite a few of these folks and they're some of the biggest idiots around.
My dad has a high school education. My mom was also a high school graduate. But in terms of understanding "the real world", they are two of the smartest people I know. And I know some very intelligent "book smart" folks, who have great difficulty balancing a checkbook!
And I think, to be fair, there is some bias on the part of the intellectuals as well. That because they have studied different things and are more "liberal" in their education (liberal arts, not political liberal) and some think that those who have never picked up a book other than a Grisham novel are basically "uneducated rubes."
Just like the Republicans and Democrats, I don't think either side has all the answers. And probably never will. I think there needs to be some sort of "meeting of the minds" so that some of the "great unwashed" get some exposure into higher things and so the "intellectuals" get a dose of real-world sensibility.
We're not talking balancing a checkbook though, Matt. We're talking about the value of science and intelligent research over political biases and agendas. The sidelong "book smarts" insult doesn't apply to studying the actual results of abstinence-only education or the actual benefits of real science for society.
ReplyDeleteAnd even if you can give me a concrete example of a scientist being arrogant, that doesn't mean the science is wrong.
I don't have any comments on the movie; I don't care. I'm just curious though; do you disagree with Duncan's statement? I mean don't parents get to decide what information and how to educate their children about sex, and life in general? I plan on raising my children with Catholic views and values. I know that's going to conflict with some expert's views on parenting. I don't care, and I believe I have that right.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have a sex education class at Howard. But everyone knew about birth control and condoms. An in-service could explain all those sex myths (can't get pregnant the first time) just to clarify fact from fiction. I personally think that having the county health nurse or maybe some pre med students coming in giving a talk would be fine. Beyond that I feel that talks and choices should be made in a doctors office, where real questions and answers can be found.
I think everyone should have basic biology knowledge of how babies are made, of course. I think the STD’s are a bigger issue today and condoms may or may not provide adequate protection. Studies are usually done on HIV transmissions not herpes or HPV, so even the CDC isn’t sure how much protection they provide against the range of disease.
Now, you know my stance on abortion, but I don't think people should be unaware of how to have safer sex. I just don't think the public school system should be focusing time and energy on this.
Christine, I disagree with the purpose for which Rep. Duncan gave his statement. He wasn't being asked whether Mom and Dad should decide what values to teach their kids. He was being asked what education policy to spend our tax dollars on. He was presented with scientific evidence from scholars that said abstinence-only education is ineffective public policy. Rather than assessing the validity of the scientific evidence, he tried to poo-poo the scientists by insulting them as "elitists." That's anti-intellectualism. That's denying the facts. That's bad public policy.
ReplyDeleteOkay.
ReplyDeleteI have read through the "scientific report" http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/impactabstinence.pdf
It's not too bad a read. The reasons for the quotations marks are as follows:
1. This particular study only looked at 4 programs. (page 13)
2. Of those four schools, these were the students participating in the study, at each school respectively: Grade 8 at enrollment, high-risk girls only grade 6-8, grade 3-8 at enrollment, grade 5 at enrollment. (page 15)
3. At two of the schools, there was additional mandatory sex-education (Page 15)
4. The control group got this other training, but no abstinence only. The program group got both the additional training and the abstinence only (Page 16)
5. In all 4 cases, the control groups were outnumbered by 124, 70, 134, and 33.
6. Despite the range in ages, numbers, and genders in the study, they lump them all together when taking an average...and they only use mean, not mode or median. For instance, the state the average age of 14.9 years (Page 18), But keep in mind that some of the programs had students starting at 8th grade, and others at 3rd grade....
7. Percentages from the 4 diferrent programs are lumped together in the final results.
7. They admit the study's lacking areas
"As with the four programs in this study, most Title V, Section 510 abstinence education
programs were implemented in upper elementary and middle schools. In addition, most
Title V, Section 510 programs are completed before youth enter high school, when rates of
sexual activity increase and many teens are either contemplating or having sex.
Findings from this study provide no evidence that abstinence programs implemented in
upper elementary and middle schools are effective in reducing the rate of teen sexual activity.
However, the findings provide no information on the effects programs might have if they
were implemented for high school youth or began at earlier ages but continued to serve
youth through high school." (Page 23)
8. I like this one, 1 of the studies pulled from a sociological area where people were predominantly white, middle income with 2 parents in the home. The other 3? Predominantly poor Black or hispanic households of 1 parent. (page 33)
I could go on and on....I think perhaps people are just looking at the "findings" and not the study itself.
From what I have just shown, would you trust this study? Or use it to apply to the rest of the population?
There are plenty of loons on the right and the left. It's too bad that they seem to get all the attention.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in college, I knew a Vietnamese exchange student who tested out of all the freshman and sophomore math classes. His transcript was straight A's all the way down, except for one B -- in physics!
I have marveled at how the Asians surpass us in mathematics, particularly the "pure" forms such as set theory, number theory, and symbolic logic. I suspect that it's more than a matter of education funding, or of liberal or conservative approaches to education. I think it's a cultural difference that goes back (in their case) thousands of years. I'm bound to stick my foot into the keyboard here if I'm not careful, but dare I say that Eastern peoples tend to value subjects such as mathematics and philosophy almost as art forms, while Western peoples are more concerned with how mathematics (at least) can be used (and are not much interested in philosophy at all, nor even logic)?
Having been exposed to people from a wide variety of cultures, I can also say that many people in other cultures view the American preoccupation with sex as rather strange. When I lived in Miami, a friend from South America said in a group presentation, "You know, not all cultures place such high emphasis on sex as you seem to do in America." As for what sort of sex education they have in, say, Ecuador, I can only guess.
Joe, if Rep. Duncan were giving the kind of thorough analysis of the scientific data that you offer, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with his words. But he wasn't looking at the data; he was making an ad hominem attack to avoid looking at the data all together. There's a big difference between saying a particular scientific study has limitations and saying scientists in general are just elitists we don't have to listen to.
ReplyDelete