I understand the point you are trying to make here, about the religious anti-intellectualism - you’re no doubt thinking about creationism and “intelligent design” and possibly personhood amendments that seek to legislate conception as the legal beginning of life - but blaming “religion” paints with waaay too broad a brush. We have a huge variety of religious communities in this country - after Tokyo, the biggest Buddhist city in the world is Los Angeles, and the U.S. has more Sikhs than Espicopalians and more Muslims than Jews - and most of them do not have a tradition of anti-intellectualism. The biggest Christian community in the U.S. is the Roman Catholic Church, which acknowledges both natural selection and the Big Bang as valid scientific theories. I think as well that the U.S. has more Jews than any nation other than Israel, and they almost venerate scholarship. The “intelligent design” folks are one small segment of the American religious population.
Oh, I once received driving instructions to our US office in a previous job that told me exactly how to get to the providence boarder, and where to turn at the providence signs, etc. Poor misinformed engineer that she was.
Hugo Chavez?
Dammit! President of Venezuela! I was so close! (It’s Enrique Peña Nieto, if anyone is interested.)
I had heard of that on these boards before (and had a bit of doubt about it, since my reaction was like yours - “Providence instead of province? Really?”), but we had someone actually say it to our face a couple of years ago on vacation - hoo boy.
Also - oh dear God, I did a Google search on Canadian providences. :smack:
And you actually believe this site’s self report? Umm this website is not evidence for that. This site is my cite.
Well, I admit we’re better off than most…
Hell no. Look, do you know how dumb a IQ of 100 is? That is “never reads a actual book” “has to sound out a comic”, etc.
There are some closed minded dudes here, and a lot of dudes with really off the wall ideas- but overall, I’d say the average IQ here is well over average.
I present as evidence the thread where it was asked what % of posters here had read the Games of Thrones series.
80 fucking % had read at least one, most had read all of them.
I think you are underestimate average IQ people, an IQ of 100 is more than enough to get an undergraduate degree if they put in the effort.
I doubt there are many STEM PhD-holders from good universities with IQs lower than 120 though
So maybe Americans aren’t “dumb as shit” because they’ve figured out how to generate revenue… seemed to win the Cold War, WWII, and pull off the Marshall Plan.
Because, the Germans are now our friends. And, our German scientists are better than the Russian’s German scientists.
Dude, Cafe Society is even less representative of the board than the board is of reality.
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And you actually believe this site’s self report? Umm this website is not evidence for that. This site is my cite.
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You are completely missing his point. It doesn’t matter whether this site’s self report is true or not.
Its the public school system
duh
I recommend Hedrick Smith’s Rethinking America (link) to anyone interested in the subject matter of this thread.
Annual hours of education are not the main topic of the book, but they are certainly mentioned.
There is no doubt America can and should do a better job of educating its children.
The educational black holes of Texas and other creationist states are a handicap the rest of the country will have to try to make up for.
There is a difference between intelligence and intellectual curiosity. In my years of teaching, I would say that most of the kids I taught were quite intelligent. However, many lacked curiosity about the world-they were quite happy to remain ignorant of geography, world affairs, different cultures, etc. If video games and football are your thing (and not art and literature), who am I to criticize? I don’t go crazy over modern art.
There’s curiosity, but it’s often a narrow, disciplined sort of curiosity. My neighbor is a French major on her way to an ESL degree, and she is a bright and outgoing person, but she is totally “in the box” - no interest in much of anything but languages, teaching, and her language-teaching friends.
All of her personality is her work - she’s totally tracked. Her kind of people are about the best we can do as a culture. Anyone really interesting or diverse tends to be a mistake.
I think that maybe the op s point is something that is not specific to the U.S. but is a general trend throughout the Western nations.
Over here in the U.K. there seems to be a definite dumbing down of tv, educational standards are being eroded by exams being made easier, calls for less capable students to be admitted to the top universities because of their poorer economic background, people who are inadequate, either educationally or behaviourlly are excused on the grounds of made up “disorders” (Which haven’t actually been proven to exist scientifically, and that includes dyslexia), so its “not their fault”.
We are developing a culture of mediocrity, where the masses intimidate the exceptional with accusations of elitism, or of having preferential backgrounds (even when this is usually not the case), but turn a blind eye when its useful to their own welfare.
Children are told that they are in all but years, virtually the equal of adults in wisdom and maturity, that everyone if they are poor in one discipline, are certainly made up for in another.
Yes he can’t spell very well, but he’s excellent in intersocial action (playing with other children in the playground)
Children aren’t children anymore, they’re “young people”, to call them children is an insult.
After all they’re just as knowledable as grown ups .
And if they don’t know something then they can always Google it.
If anything the dumbing down of education is worse over here then it is in the U.S. .
But I understand his feelings.
Wait, you can stuff a taco into a pizza?
Only the dumb Americans are dumb. I mean, c’mon… How dumb can you be?