The war on intelligence

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I’ve got some basic knowledge across many fields, but I’m not an expert in any of them by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, I even flunked out of school! Still, I’m not completely braindead. Moreover, I’m aware of my deficiencies, try to read up on things that I’m not up to speed with, and am not above changing my opinions on  topics, an approach that has served me pretty well so far. I mean, it has gotten me out of long-term employment and into a job that is generally reserved for college graduates. Yet, for some reason, I find that this approach of always learning, always wanting to improve yourself, more seems to be becoming more and more of a rarity. Indeed, the very concept of intelligence, the very idea that being smart is something desirable, something positive, appears to be becoming more and more of an object of scorn and ridicule, something to demonize rather than a goal to thrive for.

For an example, you have to look no further than modern pop culture. When‘s the last time you‘ve seen a scientist or a researcher portrayed in a positive light on the TV or the big screen? And PLEASE don‘t bring up Big Bang Theory which not only paints scientists as socially deficient freaks, but makes them the object of their unfunny jokes. Anyway, with that rant out of the way, you‘ll see that such a portrayal is very hard to find. Scientists, researchers, „geeks“ of every field are often painted as outcasts, undesirables, awkward, or as downright psychopaths. The very idea that someone who‘s able to use his smarts could also be in any way trustworthy seems to be completely unwelcome.

That‘s not to say that scientists are blameless or innocent, far from it. Names like Wernherr von Braun, J. Robert Oppenheimer or Edward Teller should always be remembered as symbols of the at times schizophrenic nature of science. Yet for every Von Braun, there is a Jonas Salk, for every Edward Teller, there is a Carl Sagan, for every Oppenheimer there is a Louis Pasteur. Yet, these positive examples, pioneers in their fields who often saved millions of lives with their work, barely exist in the public discourse, ignored by the media. 

To a certain degree, the modern academic world itself is to blame for this. Universities have long since evolved from centers of advanced learning and studies to pure degree mills, pumping out scores of Bachelors and Masters, the former of which has already been dubbed the junior cert of the academic world, for employers. And even in fields where there is still actual research going on, the projects being worked on are often so advanced, that it is hard to clearly communicate just what the purpose of all that work is. This brings me nicely into my next topic. Man, you could swear I made an outline of this piece in OneNote before starting ;) Seriously though, in this day and age, clear and concise communication of scientific ideas and principles is more important than ever before. However, many academics across all fields are seemingly completely oblivious to this. 

Granted, there are, and were, great science communicators such as Neil DeGrasse Tyson, or the late Stephen Hawking, but to be fair, apart from the latter, not many of those have in recent times been involved in much actual research. Compare that to the likes of Carl Sagan who was heavily involved in groundbreaking projects like the Voyager missions or the Viking lander, and you‘ll see where the difference lies. At the same time, many of in the scientific community who are actively involved in research may have a penchant for writing scientific papers, but have nothing that would capture the public imagination. Seriously, when‘s the last time you‘ve seen someone like Richard Feynman who actually stencilled his work on the outside of his camper van and went all over the southwestern US with it?

There is one other aspect to this sordid topic, one wholly unrelated to intellectual inflation, which deserves an article on its own to be honest, or poor communication of scientific results and principles, and much more fundamental. I‘ve noticed that in recent years, a type of mental stagnation has set in for many people. The very idea of personal development seems to be anathema to many, across all demographics and social strata from what I‘ve seen. Many people just don‘t want to evolve beyond their current point in life, and will treat anyone who attempts to evolve as a threat. This is a particularly problematic issue when considering that the world around is is permanently evolving, as is our scientific knowledge. Knowledge, intelligence, and science are not set ideologies, which seem to be all the rage these days, but rather a tool set to disseminate the world around us, the information we are constantly bombarded with, and that need to be utilised on a regular basis to prevent them from becoming dull and rusty, to prevent us from becoming dull and rusty. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, this type of attitude is often passed on to their children, even if subconsciously something that in combination with a rather inhumane education system stifles and smothers creativity, ambition, and a life-long appetite for learning, all three things needed more than ever in these challenging times.

All of this feeds into the quagmire we have today, a world in which clear scientific results are ignored in favour of quackeries like homoepathy, or senseless anti-vax propaganda, an environment where educating yourself has become a dirty act, and simply reinforcing your own bias is seen as sufficient, and a world in which self-improvement has become undesirable. Okay, granted, there‘s still millions of people out there who strive to make the best of themselves, but a counterculture that revels in their own ignorance is growing like a tumour, and there‘s no sign of this trend stopping anytime soon.

Now, in past articles on this blog, I‘d have spent the last few paragraphs that are about to follow to sketch out a potential solution to the issue I‘ve discussed. This time around however, I‘m at a bit of a loss. What’s needed here is a change in mentality above anything else, and minds are always the hardest things to change. Certainly, there needs to be a change in the way that scientific principles and discoveries are communicated, more engagingly without necessarily sacrificing complexity, as breaking things down too far can come across as patronising, and indeed often does. However, this does not solve the issue of ever-increasing mental and intellectual lethargy and complacency. How can people be kickstarted into taking an interest in their own development, their own continuing education again? I truly have no idea.