I have a Degree, in Physics. I obtained it by the thinnest possible margin. I was not a good Mathematics student, especially before I went to college. I remember being distinctly unimpressed by the rote-memorization of formulas, employed to teach things like statistics and economics (in my experience, it was practically a math class) and chemistry. I remember some (certainly not all!) of my teachers "phoning it in." They knew we didn't care, weren't learning, and weren't going to learn the material -- and they couldn't care anymore, either. So I memorized enough formulas that I didn't understand to pass, and then promptly disgorged them. Lacking an understanding of where & how to apply them, they were useless and confusing to me. I assume most of my classmates did the same, only moreso. After all, most of them didn't go on to college. That would seem to imply that they "got" still less than I did.
I have to wonder, given those experiences, if large numbers of Americans assume that college is simply more of the same. That is -- climatologists, geologists, epidemiologists, evolutionary biologists, etc. are just people who went on to memorize greater amounts of meaningless crap that they don't really understand, can't actually employ, and use to bamboozle the rest of the public. It would explain a lot.
For example, if a climatologist's education is meaningless, then my opinion about whether or not the world's getting warmer is just as valid as his. I have an outside thermometer feeding a high-tech digital display in my living room. I can check the temperature just as easily as he. If epidemiology is just a bunch of buzzwords tossed around by people who work for the medical & pharmaceutical industry, then it's much-easier for me to accept the emotional appeals of mothers with autistic children. Look at all the money those doctors make by forcing every parent to needlessly vaccinate their children! And those moms gain nothing by testifying. Clearly, those troubled parents and their unfairly burdened children are the more credible witnesses.
I have to wonder, given those experiences, if large numbers of Americans assume that college is simply more of the same. That is -- climatologists, geologists, epidemiologists, evolutionary biologists, etc. are just people who went on to memorize greater amounts of meaningless crap that they don't really understand, can't actually employ, and use to bamboozle the rest of the public. It would explain a lot.
For example, if a climatologist's education is meaningless, then my opinion about whether or not the world's getting warmer is just as valid as his. I have an outside thermometer feeding a high-tech digital display in my living room. I can check the temperature just as easily as he. If epidemiology is just a bunch of buzzwords tossed around by people who work for the medical & pharmaceutical industry, then it's much-easier for me to accept the emotional appeals of mothers with autistic children. Look at all the money those doctors make by forcing every parent to needlessly vaccinate their children! And those moms gain nothing by testifying. Clearly, those troubled parents and their unfairly burdened children are the more credible witnesses.
