“As the philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote in a 1928 essay, laypeople must evaluate expert claims by exercising their own careful logic as well. The skepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the… — Thomas M. Nichols 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 even stronger… — Thomas M. Nichols 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 or being… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“And when voters lose control of these important decisions, they risk the hijacking of their democracy by ignorant demagogues, or the more quiet and… — Thomas M. Nichols 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 a résumé… — Thomas M. Nichols 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 ask the… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“If the public has no idea about the substance of an issue, and will vote based on who they like rather than what they… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“The issue is not indifference to established knowledge; it’s the emergence of a positive hostility to such knowledge. This is new in American culture,… — Thomas M. Nichols 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 is not… — Thomas M. Nichols 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 the humanities… — Thomas M. Nichols 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 health trouble,… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread… — Thomas M. Nichols 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 are not… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
“Americans no longer distinguish the phrase “you’re wrong” from the phrase “you’re stupid.” To disagree is to disrespect. To correct another is to insult.… — Thomas M. Nichols 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, conspiracy theories,… — Thomas M. Nichols 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 provide for… — Thomas M. Nichols Copy Share Image
