I have long maintained that education is subversive—it undermines
traditional views. In my opinion, true education is the process by which one
becomes a very, very good atheist. That is why it is so hard to teach evolution
in the hinterlands. Now comes the 2012 Republican Party platform of the state
of Texas:
Jerry Coyne calls Texas the “dumbest state.” Looks like he may be right,
at least with regard to the right half of the population.
I wonder how those “fixed beliefs” got there if it wasn’t by “behaviour
modification” (otherwise known as “brain washing” or education). Of course, undermining
cosmogony will require a great deal of “critical thinking,” recognized here as
the enemy. Protecting one’s paradigm has always involved a certain degree of
censorship, as experienced by dissident physicists and atheists alike. On the
other hand, whoever wrote that part of the platform might not be as dumb as
Jerry suspects. The fact that the attack on education has reached a political
platform in such an overt form means that the threat to the status quo has been
duly noted. As educators, we are having an impact on traditional views despite budget cuts and tuition hikes.
1 comment:
Thanks Gary for the heads-up concerning online courses. It stimulated me to do a blog entirely on this topic.
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