When more is less: culturally constructed ignorance

A Range of Sources.
Your students have been researching current diseases and they come into the classroom with information from these sources. Can you help them determine which could be considered the most reliable? Might you as a teacher have a different opinion than some parents about the validity of information from some sources?

• Center for Disease Control
• Newsweek
• The bestseller The Hot Zone
• Flyers from an insurance company or HMO
• Personal webpage
• Chat room conversation
• Rush Limbaugh’s radio talk show
• National Public Radio’s “Science Friday”
  (from Survival Skills for the Information Jungle, Creative Classroom, August 2001.)

The quote above comprises the core of one of my favorite activities I do in workshops. I ask educators how they would rate the credibility of information about a dread disease if gleaned from each of the sites above.

Most rank CDC and NPR high and Rush Limbaugh, chat rooms and personal web pages low. It's then that I ask - "Do you have parents who would believe just the opposite?" And many teachers admit they do. (And I am guessing I have quite a few teachers who may themselves trust Rush over NPR.)

One of the things of which I am most hopeful is that the new Obama administration will turn away from agnotology: culturally constructed ignorance. Especially in the sciences. While we ought to debate what scientific facts may mean, that we will stop debating whether scientific facts are actually facts.

I learned this new word, agnotology, in Clive Thompson's Wired short article, "How More Info Leads to Less Knowledge." (Thanks to Colet Bartow in Montana for the recommendation.) It's worth a read.

I am not so naive to think that just because we have a new president, the dialog about evolution, abortion, global warming, conservation, or education will become more respectful and less politicized.

But one may hope it becomes less emotional and more rational.

Comments

[Lawrence Wirth]

It was fantastic to hear President Obama: "We will restore science to its rightful place". I still wonder how the anti-science political culture developed - were Bush and Co. true believers or was it all for cynical political gains? Either way, not something the nation should be proud of.

[Jacquie Henry]

Susan Jacoby has written about this issue in her latest book "The Age Of American Unreason" . It is also worth reading. I am very interested in this topic and will check back in case others post links to articles/books about this topic. I am currently experimenting with keeping track of my professional reading on my school website. I will post links related to this topic on my web evaluation research page.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Lawrence,

Thanks for leaving the comment on the blog. I am guessing Obama may be more conservative in some ways than some of us like, but I do think he will restore science to something that is more objective than political.

All the best,

Doug

Hi Jacquie,

Thanks for the recommendations and links!

Doug

[Floyd Pentlin]

I had marked this for later reading. Considering the uncivility of the current dialog, I wonder if your hopes have been dashed?

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Floyd,

The discourse seems to be getting more coarse instead of less. My perception is what the right lacks in sense, it tries to make up for in volume and hyperbole. But that's my predjudice, I suppose.

Sigh,

Doug