Ignorance in our Modern World and why I abhor it...

I've decided not to place this in debate and discussion as all of this is more personal conjecture using learned facts/opinions, than it is a systematic analysis with cited sources. Anyways, I've finally come to an epiphany as to why I feel modern society is getting worse...regardless of what some XKCD comic says.

The availability of educational resources has increased in Western society over the last few thousand years. With the standardization of schooling in many Western nations, increasing availability of books and other media, and the rising availability of the internet, and internet connected devices, access to an education or the ability to educate oneself is likely at the highest point it has been ever from the richest of the rich, to your average man, to all but the poorest of the poor. Yet there are still ignorant, and uneducated people. My qualm here is not with intelligence or lack there-of, but with the squandering of opportunities and resources that people of the past could not have dreamed of even being available.

Consider your average European citizen living in the Middle Ages. Why is this poor fellow uneducated? Because the opportunities for education are not available to him. Education is a luxury afforded (both in time, money, and availability) by the nobility, and those in certain religious orders. Now consider your average European or American citizen living today. Why are they uneducated? Either they're incredibly poor, live in a poor area, or, now here is the part I have qualms with...they or their guardian has chosen to forsake education for personal reasons. They even choose to ignore facts so readily available that they are bombarded with them on a highly frequent basis. As an example, a proper education in certain fields of physics or medicine, and knowledge of these things, takes time and resources to acquire. More so than the effort needed to gain the knowledge that a computer is not a box that operates on magic, living creatures are evolving, ejaculating inside of a vagina can result in pregnancy, amongst other similar basic things. We even now have groups of people, some on this board, who attempt to claim that an education is either not valuable or that being educated is in fact a negative attribute. How the fuck have we come to this? :sour:

This trend is an affront to any civilization, let alone a modern one.

"abhor"

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Originally Posted by Nessus

"abhor"

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Thanks. Can't really change the link, title is changed though. Does some mod want to take care of this?

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Originally Posted by Illusions

Thanks. Can't really change the link, title is changed though. Does some mod want to take care of this?

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You can edit the title yourself. Go Advanced.

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Originally Posted by Being

You can edit the title yourself. Go Advanced.

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He's tried that already.

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Originally Posted by Illusions

Yes, the change title option in the edit post > advanced menus only changes the title as it appears above the first post, not the link to the thread or the title in the tab/browser window.

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Originally Posted by Illusions

I've decided not to place this in debate and discussion as all of this is more personal conjecture using learned facts/opinions, than it is a systematic analysis with cited sources.

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:bored:


How do you feel about people who do have an education yet somehow remain ignorant? Willful ignornance or the voluntarily mis-informed. I find that behavior more disturbing than people just not bothering to get educated.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

:bored:

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Why the :| face?

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Originally Posted by Illusions

Why the :| face?

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Oh, I was just making a joke at how kind you were to much of the discussion in that forum. Also, I edited above with some questions.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

Oh, I was just making a joke at how kind you were to much of the discussion in that forum. Also, I edited above with some questions.

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Huh? I was saying most of the stuff that gets posted in Debate and Discussion is either debate material, or discussions centered around articles, or a person posting an analysis of something that interests them. What I posted is a rant, backed by personal anecdotes, and some information that is likely true, but since I just want to chat about it, is not source cited.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

How do you feel about people who do have an education yet somehow remain ignorant? Willful ignornance or the voluntarily mis-informed. I find that behavior more disturbing than people just not bothering to get educated.

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Well there are two types of willful ignorance, there are those who choose to actively avoid information, and there are those who learn that information and then choose to forget it, never apply it, or treat it as if its worthless/wrong. Being voluntarily misinformed is a form of willful ignorance as you'd have to have some information to work with in order to knowingly choose to avoid more of it. The person who goes to the Bible for information on the origins of creatures may be doing so because it is the only information they know, whereas the person who goes to the Bible instead of a textbook acknowledges that there are competing ideas out there, but instead seeks out only ideas that conform to their viewpoints. The latter is willful ignorance, not the first.

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Originally Posted by Illusions

Huh? I was saying most of the stuff that gets posted in Debate and Discussion is either debate material, or discussions centered around articles, or a person posting an analysis of something that interests them. What I posted is a rant, backed by personal anecdotes, and some information that is likely true, but since I just want to chat about it, is not source cited.

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Its fine. Really. I was just joking, implying the folks discussing there are just ranting and so on. :)

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Well there are two types of willful ignorance, there are those who choose to actively avoid information, and there are those who learn that information and then choose to forget it, never apply it, or treat it as if its worthless/wrong. Being voluntarily misinformed is a form of willful ignorance as you'd have to have some information to work with in order to knowingly choose to avoid more of it. The person who goes to the Bible for information on the origins of creatures may be doing so because it is the only information they know, whereas the person who goes to the Bible instead of a textbook acknowledges that there are competing ideas out there, but instead seeks out only ideas that conform to their viewpoints. The latter is willful ignorance, not the first.

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How about those that choose to believe things like President Obama is trying to set up a communist state? I've really been perplexed by a number of people in my AR circle that choose to believe a sad array of crazy stuff like that. They are not stupid and they are not necessarily uneducated. More than anything they are angry as hell, but they can't articulate what at.

Maybe this is something different - the ignorance of those being intentionally misled? (I think some of the religous stuff would fall under that too)

Ignorance and education are not opposites. They sometimes even go together. There are plenty or rich, well-educated, ignorant people today.

People choose what they wish to believe--or at least, they choose among those ideas that have been presented to them based upon past experience and biased information. But the real kicker is getting people to care that what they believe is as close to true as possible. Maybe this is what "abhors" you? :) It does seem that most people don't care to investigate their own beliefs and question whether their views of the world (or specific subjects) are reasonably accurate.

And I'll go on record as saying that, after some point, formal education is indeed a negative attribute.

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Originally Posted by Bolo Mark 33

Ignorance and education are not opposites. They sometimes even go together. There are plenty or rich, well-educated, ignorant people today.

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Well you need to educate yourself or be educated by someone else in order to become less ignorant, so I would say they go hand and hand...however you are right, they are not opposites. I wasn't trying to make them opposites. I was explicitly trying to illustrate that we live in an age where there is greater opportunity than there has ever been to be less ignorant, yet a large quantity of people who are fully capable of being educated still choose to remain so.

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People choose what they wish to believe--or at least, they choose among those ideas that have been presented to them based upon past experience and biased information. But the real kicker is getting people to care that what they believe is as close to true as possible. Maybe this is what "abhors" you? :) It does seem that most people don't care to investigate their own beliefs and question whether their views of the world (or specific subjects) are reasonably accurate.

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This is categorically willful ignorance. It is people saying "I understand that there may be gaps in my knowledge, however I choose to not address them!" I can understand this in certain areas. I am ignorant of the details of certain theories in physics, but only because there is only so much time in which to learn things, and others have taken priority. I however do not attempt to claim that I know better than experts, or even those more knowledgeable than myself. For instance if Nessus told me X about physics theory Y, and further research and sources backed this, I would not stamp my feet and claim they are wrong simply because I don't want to correct my view of the world for some ridiculous reason.

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Originally Posted by Bolo Mark 33

It does seem that most people don't care to investigate their own beliefs and question whether their views of the world (or specific subjects) are reasonably accurate.
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Seems like the concept of skepticism fits in here somehwere.

Education usually is about downloading data to your brain.
Critical thinking is about questioning what you know.
Formal education rarely allows you to question things.

What kind of ignorance do you mean?
The ignorance caused by lack of data?
or the ignorance caused by lack of questioning everything?

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Originally Posted by ar81

What kind of ignorance do you mean?
The ignorance caused by lack of data?
or the ignorance caused by lack of questioning everything?

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I answered this question in the paragraphs I typed up in the original post, and it is not ignorance, but the attitude that results in its continued existence...

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

Seems like the concept of skepticism fits in here somehwere.

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Yup, although it only seems to help to a limited degree. Its general human nature to not question certain beliefs.

And because of this, even proud skeptics tend to falter a lot. The real fun is to watch skeptics act unskeptically. If anyone is familiar with Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy, he provides a little window into the "official" skeptics community--not as a critic of it but as an enthusiastic participant. Its interesting to sometimes see completely irrational beliefs, unquestioned assumptions, and tribal hero worship take precedence over their skepticism. Its admittedly rare there, but I've still seen it a bit. :)

Back to the general topic:

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This is categorically willful ignorance. It is people saying "I understand that there may be gaps in my knowledge, however I choose to not address them!" I can understand this in certain areas. I am ignorant of the details of certain theories in physics, but only because there is only so much time in which to learn things, and others have taken priority. I however do not attempt to claim that I know better than experts, or even those more knowledgeable than myself. For instance if Nessus told me X about physics theory Y, and further research and sources backed this, I would not stamp my feet and claim they are wrong simply because I don't want to correct my view of the world for some ridiculous reason.

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(My statement above wasn't about willful ignorance, but ignorance in general. But its getting late, so I'm just going to post what I originally wrote below and save the debate over what constitutes willful ignorance for later)

Well then, how about this: We have all these resources for education and learning, as you say in your initial post. You also state that one must be educated (self- or by another) in order to even have the chance at becoming less ignorant. I'll agree with that. But then the next question to ask is "educated in what and to what end?" Perhaps the problem is not that people don't take advantage of educational opportunities, but that our educational system is not designed with the express purpose of creating inquisitive, skeptical, well-rounded people. Rather than teaching people to question their beliefs and the underlying assumptions of their daily lives, the system has another purpose. One popular explanation that I've come across is that people are educated to more closely adhere to social norms, become used to authority in the workplace and at home, and to learn to focus their attention on very specific topics without connecting details to come up with a bigger picture. To make them better factory workers, in other words. While I don't think this is the only reason that our schools are run as they are, it certainly has merit as a partial explanation and I've read/seen a fair bit of evidence to support it.

People are taking advantage of educational opportunities. Its just that those opportunities, more often than not, are not designed to make them less ignorant and more questioning. They are instead designed to train them for specific skills and get them to think only about specific topics that can be neatly compartmentalized away from the rest of life. As a brief anecdote, I have a friend who graduated from an Ivy League university with a degree in Philosophy. Now, whatever you may think of the discipline of philosophy, this was still a great program and he took courses in formal logic, read "the classics," etc. Yet he cannot apply this knowledge to modern politics or society. He's become a bit of a Randroid, worships Sean Hannity and Fox News, and basically falls for all sorts of BS about government always being evil and corporations always being good and righteous. He's completely tribal in politics, loving most things Republican and hating all things Democrat, no matter what the situation. If he had gone the other way and become tribal for the Democrats, worshiped Olbermann, etc. then I would level the same criticism: He doesn't apply his education to his actual, real life. He has compartmentalized the logic, philosophy of government, ethics, etc. to the point where he makes arguments that an 8th grader can refute (and has refuted... in his presence... and has made him very angry and unwilling to argue further. Very entertaining.).

If you're also asking "why don't people go down to the library and read Plato?" or something equivalent, its because most people are busy, tired, and have spent a lot of time in our current educational system.

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Originally Posted by Bolo Mark 33

If you're also asking "why don't people go down to the library and read Plato?" or something equivalent, its because most people are busy, tired, and have spent a lot of time in our current educational system.

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When you are interested, you will find the time.

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Originally Posted by Bolo Mark 33

Yup, although it only seems to help to a limited degree. Its general human nature to not question certain beliefs.

And because of this, even proud skeptics tend to falter a lot. The real fun is to watch skeptics act unskeptically. If anyone is familiar with Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy, he provides a little window into the "official" skeptics community--not as a critic of it but as an enthusiastic participant. Its interesting to sometimes see completely irrational beliefs, unquestioned assumptions, and tribal hero worship take precedence over their skepticism. Its admittedly rare there, but I've still seen it a bit. :)

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No doubt. Wanting to believe and keep believing in certain things is part of the human condition. Its really a milestone that we've begun identifying and quantifying this tendency. If we know about our own belief momentum, its gotta help to get past it.

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Originally Posted by Bolo Mark 33

If you're also asking "why don't people go down to the library and read Plato?" or something equivalent, its because most people are busy, tired, and have spent a lot of time in our current educational system.

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What I'm actually referring to is my disdain for when people, approached with educational material, choose to ignore it. This could be the kid from highschool who takes absolutely zero interest in learning anything, acts like a douche in general, will probably drop out of school when first able to, then spend the rest of their life working at McDonalds wondering why life isn't better for them. Or minority peers/parents encouraging their peers/children to not bother with school/educational things because it will make them "too white" or they feel its worthless. Or people with Lewkowski's attitude on education, what should be taught, and for how long. Or the guy who has for some reason managed to sit through an educational program only to go "Dumb scientists! Don't they know God did it! *Insert equally specious logic here*!" Or persons like Biogal, the "I teach evolution but don't believe it" educator. That and others like the ones I have listed. Its not simply not being educated, but active opposition to the educational process.

This is what I was trying to outline. There were swathes of people in the distant past who weren't educated. We've made education more readily available by leaps and bounds since then. What we are seeing now are a lot more active attempts to either avoid or oppose education, and at times even from those people who would benefit from it the most.

the op is full of lies. modern society is hella better than the middle ages, even wrt education and suchlike. the average westerner today knows and understands far more of this world than did the average serf back in the days.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

the op is full of lies. modern society is hella better than the middle ages, even wrt education and suchlike. the average westerner today knows and understands far more of this world than did the average serf back in the days.

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Congratulations on your accomplishment of either not reading, or not comprehending what I wrote, especially since I've outlined that the availability of educators and educational material is at the highest it has been ever in human history.

I have a question for you, do you believe that occurrences of rejection of education, educational material, and the marginalization of these things by groups of people is more, or less than it has been in the past?

A quick little piece of news for digestion in this thread:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...07&ft=1&f=1007

The article has a general focus on climate change, but the overall points may be pretty relevant here. Ok, gotta get back to work now...

"Ninety-eight percent of the research climatologists in the world say that global warming is real, that its impacts are going to be catastrophic," he argued. "There are 2 percent who disagree with that. I have a choice of believing the 98 percent or the 2 percent."

I didn't realize science was a popularity contest.

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Originally Posted by Illusions

I have a question for you, do you believe that occurrences of rejection of education, educational material, and the marginalization of these things by groups of people is more, or less than it has been in the past?

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If I may answer: Less. Much less. The proportion of the population that graduates high school or gets college degrees has been increasing steadily for a long time. For example. Scroll to the 2nd page and look at Figure 1. The fraction of the population with a high school diploma is pretty close to 90% now, but it was hovering around 35% in 1950. Similar trends exist for college degrees. Of course, that's just one measure of education, but I think its probably the most significant.

Although this really depends on how you measure it. The total amount of educational material and opportunities available has increased enormously in the modern era, while the human capacity to absorb them probably hasn't. It may be that rejection occurs more often but retention/acceptance does as well just due to the increased number of opportunities. I don't know--just speculating here.

I think Illusions' point was that in 1950, most people didn't have the opportunity to go to college and in many cases even to high school. Now everyone has the opportunity to go to college, and yet over half don't go at all, and only something like a third gets a degree.

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Originally Posted by Loki

I think Illusions' point was that in 1950, most people didn't have the opportunity to go to college and in many cases even to high school. Now everyone has the opportunity to go to college, and yet over half don't go at all, and only something like a third gets a degree.

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How do you define opportunity?

Most? Highschool? 1950? Not sure about that one.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

hella

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Anyone who uses the word 'hella' is ignorant. :mad:

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Originally Posted by Loki

I think Illusions' point was that in 1950, most people didn't have the opportunity to go to college and in many cases even to high school. Now everyone has the opportunity to go to college, and yet over half don't go at all, and only something like a third gets a degree.

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My other point was that its not just schooling that has change, but technology that allows access to information has improved vastly. This is yet another opportunity to educate oneself or others. Bolo is also ignoring that education simply doesn't end, or at least shouldn't, once schooling does. It should be an ongoing process throughout one's life.

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Originally Posted by Illusions

My other point was that its not just schooling that has change, but technology that allows access to information has improved vastly.

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And dis-information. Sorry to keep bringing that up, but the information age mega-resources don't care if the information they convey is factual, made up, or intentially misleading.... :( Who would have guessed that would be a problem.