Hi,
Those that could best explain it are too busy doing it. And, frankly, few of them have the talent, the charisma, the stage presence of a Sagan to enable them to communicate with an audience.
No, the fault lies, in my opinion, with the media. The beautiful stupid are a poor choice for informing the nation of anything more important than a lost dog that finds its way home. But as long as news is lumped with entertainment, for that long will it be worthless.
And, too, a large part of the fault lies with democracy, ". . . a form of government where opinions are counted and not weighed." How to address the issue that most voters are not sufficiently educated in modern technology to make rational decisions is not easy. All the valid means of ensuring that only fact based opinions are included in the vote lead to charges of elitism. Which means that in most cases the prejudice based ignorant opinions will win.
--Pete
Quote:[url=http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter11.html]Thanks for the link. I used to have that material in hard copy, loaned it out and never got it back. Didn't realize it was available on-line. It should be required reading for everyone.
Quote:I think worse than the "vast bulk of the population are blithering idiots" are the silent intelligencia who know better, but choose to remain muteRight. Like I could walk into CBS, ABC, etc. and ask for and get a show like Nova. Like I could *force* the Survivor watching mindless wonders to change the channel to something educational. And like somehow the single neuron net challenged are going to understand.
Those that could best explain it are too busy doing it. And, frankly, few of them have the talent, the charisma, the stage presence of a Sagan to enable them to communicate with an audience.
No, the fault lies, in my opinion, with the media. The beautiful stupid are a poor choice for informing the nation of anything more important than a lost dog that finds its way home. But as long as news is lumped with entertainment, for that long will it be worthless.
And, too, a large part of the fault lies with democracy, ". . . a form of government where opinions are counted and not weighed." How to address the issue that most voters are not sufficiently educated in modern technology to make rational decisions is not easy. All the valid means of ensuring that only fact based opinions are included in the vote lead to charges of elitism. Which means that in most cases the prejudice based ignorant opinions will win.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?