“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
“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 Science 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 Copy Share Image
“Experts need to remember, always, that they are the servants and not the masters of a democratic society and a republican government.… — Thomas M. Nichols Civic virtue 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 Politics 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
“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
“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
“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
“We are supposed to “agree to disagree,” a phrase now used indiscriminately as little more than a conversational fire extinguisher. And if… — Thomas M. Nichols Agree to disagree 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
“This illustrates an important point: then as now, Americans tend to think about issues like macroeconomic policy or foreign affairs only when… — Thomas M. Nichols Foreign affairs 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
“Unable to see their own biases, most people will simply drive each other crazy arguing rather than accept answers that contradict what… — 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
“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 Science 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
“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
“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
“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
“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 Bad thing 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
“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
“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
