“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“In 2015, a Massachusetts accountant named Stephen Pasceri lost his seventy-eight-year-old mother to cardiovascular disease. Mrs. Pasceri had a long history of… — Thomas M. Nichols Cardiovascular disease Copy Share Image
“The two most important facts about grade inflation, however, are that it exists and that it suffuses students with unwarranted confidence in… — Thomas M. Nichols Confidence Copy Share Image
“The American attachment to intellectual self-reliance described by Tocqueville survived for nearly a century before falling under a series of assaults from… — Thomas M. Nichols Average american Copy Share Image
“Populism actually reinforces this elitism, because the celebration of ignorance cannot launch communications satellites, negotiate the rights of US citizens overseas, or… — Thomas M. Nichols Communication Copy Share Image
“Democracy, as practiced in the United States in the early twenty-first century, has become a resentful, angry business. The fragile egos of… — Thomas M. Nichols Business Copy Share Image
“This sense of entitlement is one reason they are continually angry at “experts” and especially at “elitists,” a word that in modern… — Thomas M. Nichols Education Copy Share Image
“Today, by contrast, students explode over imagined slights that are not even remotely in the same category as fighting for civil rights… — Thomas M. Nichols Civil rights Copy Share Image
“More important and more relevant to the death of expertise, however, is that conspiracy theories are deeply attractive to people who have… — Thomas M. Nichols Complicated world 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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“A talk show, for example, with one scientist who says genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are safe and one activist who says they… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“The Internet, however, is nothing like a library. Rather, it’s a giant repository where anyone can dump anything, from a first folio… — Thomas M. Nichols Internet 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
“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
“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
“The requirements of a degree in a STEM field (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), a demanding foreign language, or a rigorous degree in… — Thomas M. Nichols Art Copy Share Image
“At the root of all this is an inability among laypeople to understand that experts being wrong on occasion about certain issues… — Thomas M. Nichols 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
“The foundational knowledge of the average American is now so low that it has crashed through the floor of “uninformed,” passed “misinformed”… — Thomas M. Nichols Learning 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
![“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)