“College is supposed to be an uncomfortable experience.” — Thomas M. Nichols College Copy Share Image
“Anti-intellectualism is itself a means of short-circuiting democracy, because a stable democracy in any culture relies on the public actually understanding the… — Thomas M. Nichols Democracy Copy Share Image
“The modern media, with so many options tailored to particular views, is a huge exercise in confirmation bias. This means that Americans… — Thomas M. Nichols Fitness Copy Share Image
“While expertise isn’t dead, however, it’s in trouble. Something is going terribly wrong. The United States is now a country obsessed with… — Thomas M. Nichols Expertise Copy Share Image
“Just as we are not all equally able to carry a tune or draw a straight line, many people simply cannot recognize… — Thomas M. Nichols Straight line Copy Share Image
“These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had so much access to so much knowledge and yet have been so… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“Why can’t people simply accept these differences in knowledge or competence? This is an unreasonable question, since it amounts to saying “Why… — Thomas M. Nichols Smart people Copy Share Image
“There aren’t enough pages in this or any other book to catalog the amount of bad information on the Internet. Miracle cures,… — Thomas M. Nichols Books Copy Share Image
“Some educators even repeat the old saw that “I learn as much from my students as they learn from me!” (With due… — Thomas M. Nichols Education Copy Share Image
“Ordinary Americans might never have liked the educated or professional classes very much, but until recently they did not widely disdain their… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“Conspiracy theories are also a way for people to give context and meaning to events that frighten them. Without a coherent explanation… — Thomas M. Nichols Conspiracy Copy Share Image
“No, the bigger problem is that we’re proud of not knowing things. Americans have reached a point where ignorance, especially of anything… — Thomas M. Nichols Anti-intellectualism Copy Share Image
“Conspiracy theorists manipulate all tangible evidence to fit their explanation, but worse, they will also point to the absence of evidence as… — Thomas M. Nichols Conspiracy Copy Share Image
“This is why the collapse of the relationship between experts and citizens is a dysfunction of democracy itself. The abysmal literacy, both… — Thomas M. Nichols Democracy Copy Share Image
“People do not come to the Internet so that their bad information can be corrected or their cherished theories disproven. Rather, they… — Thomas M. Nichols Hoaxes Copy Share Image
“People simply do not understand numbers, risk, or probability, and few things can make discussion between experts and laypeople more frustrating than… — Thomas M. Nichols Safe landing Copy Share Image
“As the economic writer Ben Casselman pointed out in 2016, most college applicants “never have to write a college entrance essay, pad… — Thomas M. Nichols Education Copy Share Image
“This was the same warning José Ortega y Gasset gave when he wrote Revolt of the Masses in 1930: “The mass crushes… — Thomas M. Nichols Revolt Copy Share Image
“Consider the various ways in which Trump’s campaign represented a one-man campaign against established knowledge. He was one of the original “birthers”… — Thomas M. Nichols American citizenship Copy Share Image
“Conspiracy theories, by contrast, are frustrating precisely because they are so intricate. Each rejoinder or contradiction only produces a more complicated theory.… — Thomas M. Nichols Conspiracy Copy Share Image
“What happened next transfixed many readers. (Jeffrey Lewis, an arms expert in California, captured and posted the exchange online.) “I can’t find… — Thomas M. Nichols Books Copy Share Image
“There is no way around the reality that students are too often wasting their money and obtaining the illusion of an education… — Thomas M. Nichols Education Copy Share Image
“None of us is a Da Vinci, painting the Mona Lisa in the morning and designing helicopters at night. That’s as it… — Thomas M. Nichols Ignorance Copy Share Image
“The resulting flood of information, always of varying quality and sometimes of uncertain sanity, creates a veneer of knowledge that actually leaves… — Thomas M. Nichols Knowledge Copy Share Image
“Citizens no longer understand democracy to mean a condition of political equality, in which one person gets one vote, and every individual… — Thomas M. Nichols Democracy Copy Share Image
“In 1787, Benjamin Franklin was supposedly asked what would emerge from the Constitutional Convention being held in Philadelphia. “A republic,” Franklin answered,… — Thomas M. Nichols Constitution Copy Share Image
“The relationship between experts and citizens is not “democratic.” All people are not, and can never be, equally talented or intelligent. Democratic… — Thomas M. Nichols Ignorance Copy Share Image
“In this hypercompetitive media environment, editors and producers no longer have the patience—or the financial luxury—to allow journalists to develop their own… — Thomas M. Nichols Journalism Copy Share Image
“Trump survived all of this, seized the Republican nomination, and won, because in the end, he connected with a particular kind of… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“voters.” Whether about science or policy, however, they all share the same disturbing characteristic: a solipsistic and thin-skinned insistence that every opinion… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“I was a straight-A student at a university” does not mean what it did in 1960 or even 1980. A study of… — Thomas M. Nichols Education Copy Share Image
“Students, well intentioned or otherwise, are poorly served by the idea that students and teachers are intellectual and social equals and that… — Thomas M. Nichols Education Copy Share Image
“Actually, this is an understatement: the public not only expressed strong views, but respondents actually showed enthusiasm for military intervention in Ukraine… — Thomas M. Nichols Lack of knowledge Copy Share Image
“The lack of metacognition sets up a vicious loop, in which people who don’t know much about a subject do not know… — Thomas M. Nichols Argument Copy Share Image
“As it turns out, however, the more specific reason that unskilled or incompetent people overestimate their abilities far more than others is… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“This is not a trivial obstacle when it comes to the problems of expert engagement with the public: nearly 30 percent of… — Thomas M. Nichols Journalism Copy Share Image
“Of course, there’s also the basic problem that some people just aren’t very bright. And as we’ll see, the people who are… — Thomas M. Nichols Confidence Copy Share Image
“To faculty everywhere, the lesson was obvious: the campus of a top university is not a place for intellectual exploration. It is… — Thomas M. Nichols Education Copy Share Image
“What is different today, and especially worrisome when it comes to the creation of educated citizens, is how the protective, swaddling environment… — Thomas M. Nichols Education Copy Share Image
“What used to be a jocular and usually benign ridicule of intellect and formal training has turned into a malign resentment of… — Thomas M. Nichols Fitness Copy Share Image
![“What happened next transfixed many readers. (Jeffrey Lewis, an arms expert in California, captured and posted the exchange online.) “I can’t find the chemical and physical properties of sarin gas [sic] someone please help me,” the student tweeted. Kaszeta offered his help. He corrected her by…” quote by Thomas M. Nichols](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/d75/thomas-m-nichols-8933_books_what-happened-next-transfixed-many-reade_2052109.jpg)
