Agnotology: The politics of ignorance

In the January, 2009 issue of Discover Magazine, Robert Proctor discusses "agnotology," defined as the "politics of ignorance."

It’s the study of the politics of ignorance. I’m looking at how ignorance is actively created through things like military secrecy in science or through deliberate policies like the tobacco industry’s effort to manufacture doubt through their “doubt is our product” strategy [spelled out in a 1969 tobacco company memo]. So it’s not that science inherently always grows. It can actually be destroyed in certain ways, or ignorance can actually be created. . . . It’s pretty common. I mean, in terms of sowing doubt, certainly global warming is a famous one. You know, the global warming denialists who for years have managed to say, “Well, the case is not proven. We need more research.” And what’s interesting is that a lot of the people working on that were also the people working for Big Tobacco. The techniques of manufacturing doubt were created largely within the tobacco industry, and then they were franchised out to other industries.

In this Wikipedia article, the root causes of agnotology are deemed to be "media neglect, corporate or governmental secrecy and suppression, document destruction, and myriad forms of inherent or avoidable culturopolitical selectivity, inattention, and forgetfulness." To this list, I would add, fatigue, the bright-shiny distractions and gadgets offered by society, the "Dunning-Kruger Effect," limited attentional capacities and the banality of evil. I do like the trend that so many writers and scientists are beginning to focus in on these topics and the related topics of undue certitude and "tortucanism."

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How to improve math class

I really enjoyed this TED lecture by full-time ninth grade math teacher Dan Meyer. His main point is that modern math textbooks do so much hand-holding that they fail to inspire students to think through the problems. Instead of teaching math, they teach students to "decode" the problems by all-too-apparent reference to the exemplars. As a result, many math texts cultivate impatience. Dan argues that we've got to stop thinking about math as merely computation skills. In support of this point, he quoted a man named Albert Einstein: "The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill." Dan is doing his best as a teacher and a blogger to change the way students look at math class. I should not be something students resist, but rather embrace. His approaches to teaching math are easy to understand, and he offers many creative applications along the way. Meyer's work brings to mind the writings of John Paulos, who bemoans rampant American innumeracy (and see here).

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The college version of the subprime mortage mess

Investor Steve Eisman whose huge wager against the subprime mortgage market was described by Michael Lewis The Big Short has launched an assault on fast growing for-profit college industry. Here's the link at Mother Jones. According to the Eisman, for-profit colleges "raked in almost one-quarter of the $89 billion in available Title IV loans and grants, despite having only 10 percent of the nation's post-secondary students." Here is the main parallel between for-profit educators and the sub-prime lenders:

Eisman attributes the industry's success to a Bush administration that stripped away regulations and increased the private sector's access to public funds. "The government, the students, and the taxpayer bear all the risk and the for-profit industry reaps all the rewards," Eisman said. "This is similar to the subprime mortgage sector in that the subprime originators bore far less risk than the investors in their mortgage paper."
Here's another similarity between subprime lending and for-profit education

Both push low-income Americans into something they can't afford—in the schools' case, pricey programs that leave the students heavily in debt; what's more, the degrees they get mean little in the real world: "With billboards lining the poorest neighborhoods in America and recruiters trolling casinos and homeless shelters—and I mean that literally—the for-profits have become increasingly adept at pitching the dream of a better life and higher earnings to the most vulnerable."

In the Mother Jones article, Eisman pointed to the self-reported (and thus potentially under-reported) 50-plus percent dropout rate at for profit colleges as further evidence that they offer poor-quality education. After reading the above article, I referred to Wikipedia's article one of the biggest for-profit colleges: Phoenix University, subsidiary of the publicly traded Apollo Group, Inc. It offers "open enrollment," meaning that it requires "proof of a high-school diploma, GED, or its equivalent." Phoenix graduates only 16% of its students, compared to the national average of 55%. On the topic of de-regulation and quality of education, consider this:

The school was the top recipient of student financial aid funds for the 2008 fiscal year, receiving nearly $2.48 billion for students enrolled. In 2006, due largely to the efforts attributed to the Apollo group, the 50-percent rule (requiring colleges and universities to conduct at least half of its instruction in person in order to receive federal aid or collect federal student loans) was modified. It no longer classifies students receiving instruction through telecommunications methods as correspondence students.

The Wikipedia article offers a lot more information to feed the fires of my suspicion. I don't claim to know any more about Phoenix University than what I have read in these two articles. What I do bring to the table is that I investigated diploma mills as part of my job while I worked as an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Missouri; I don't like the smell of what I'm reading about these for-profit colleges. Based on what Michael Eisman has stated, it would seem to be a good idea for the federal government to tighten its standards for the types of post-secondary schools eligible for federal loans, and to take a much closer look at the quality of education received by the typical Phoenix University student. Is it really worthy of a federal loan guarantee?

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Saving Africa’s Witch Children

I am often asked, "Why do you fight against religion?" Today my answer would be best expressed by this article from the New York Times. A new documentary called "Saving Africa's Witch Children" will be airing Wednesday May 26th on HBO2. The documentary follows Gary Foxcroft...

...founder of the charity Stepping Stones Nigeria, as he travels the rural state of Akwa Ibom, rescuing children abused during horrific “exorcisms” — splashed with acid, buried alive, dipped in fire — or abandoned roadside, cast out of their villages because some itinerant preacher called them possessed.
One of the main subjects of the documentary is Helen Ukpabio.
At home in Nigeria, the Pentecostal preacher Helen Ukpabio draws thousands to her revival meetings. Last August, when she had herself consecrated Christendom’s first “lady apostle,” Nigerian politicians and Nollywood actors attended the ceremony. Her books and DVDs, which explain how Satan possesses children, are widely known. So well-known, in fact, that Ms. Ukpabio’s critics say her teachings have contributed to the torture or abandonment of thousands of Nigerian children — including infants and toddlers — suspected of being witches and warlocks.
If ever there was a reason to continue to strive to undermine the authority of religion, this is it.

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It’s The Women, Stupid…redux

I have from time to time made the point that the entire debate over abortion and birth control and almost the whole edifice of what we call Fundamentalism in the world, in whatever religion, is all essentially over controlling women. Here is an article which has one of the most bizarre takes on the entire issue I've ever seen. The central premise is early on stated in 0ne sentence that defines all of this nonsense, in whatever creed you care to name. "Sexual relationships, while enacted privately, are public property." The twists in logic, never mind rationality, are among the most byzantine I've ever encountered. What is more, the writer doesn't seem to understand that this "philosophy" reduces children to little more than marks on a scorecard. The exhibition of marital health and fidelity is all that is important. The attempt to limit family size and indulge private acts privately for private purposes is reduced to an attempt to deceive the community, pure and simple. But ultimately, as in all other instances of this kind of obscene interference with the personal, it is the women who bear the costs, the burdens, and the responsibility. I suppose the next step would be to devise a kind of tracking bracelet for the penis and vagina so someone somewhere can determine when either is being used and where. I have no answer for this kind of inanity (or insanity). The fact that this makes sense to some people disturbs me no end, because it means that some people cannot see past the end of their own prurience. Yes, I said prurience, because to come up with this kind of thing, rather than demonstrating a balanced healthy appreciation for sex, shows an obsession with it that can only be described as prurient.

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