Good Morning, Idiot America

[Kitsune]

Will these years be known as the start of America trusting its gut over sound analysis and science? Here's a decent article on the trend of people no longer equating intelligence with success and why we're looking more to television and the government for simple answers to hard questions.

What will happen, though, when an entire generation of children grows up under these ideals? Will these delusions drive us to more gut-feeling reactions about international policy, education, and the devaluation of science?

"Even in the developing world, where I spend lots of time doing my work," Hodges says, "if you tell them that you're from MIT and you tell them that you do science, it's a big deal. If I go to India and tell them I'm from MIT, it's a big deal. In Thailand, it's a big deal. If I go to Iowa, they could give a rat's ass. And that's a weird thing, that we're moving in that direction as a nation."

Because scientific expertise was dragged into political discussion, and because political discussion is hopelessly corrupt, the distrust of scientific expertise is now as general as the dis-trust of politicians is. Everyone is an expert, so nobody is. For example, Sean Hannity's knowledge of, say, stem-cell research is measured precisely by his ratings book. His views on the subject are more well known than those of the people doing the actual research.

"We've been attacked," [Pastor Ray Mummert] says, "by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture."