“Not only do increasing numbers of laypeople lack basic knowledge, they reject fundamental rules of evidence and refuse to learn how to… — Thomas M. Nichols New knowledge 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… — Thomas M. Nichols Democracy Copy Share Image
“Colleges are supposed to be the calm environment in which educated men and women determine what’s true and what’s false, and where… — Thomas M. Nichols Colleges Copy Share Image
“Arguing at length with a conspiracy theorist is not only fruitless but sometimes dangerous, and I do not recommend it. It’s a… — Thomas M. Nichols Conspiracy 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… — 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… — Thomas M. Nichols American culture Copy Share Image
“It was probably inevitable that the anti-intellectualism of American life would invade college campuses, but that is no reason to surrender to… — Thomas M. Nichols American life 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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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 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 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
“And when voters lose control of these important decisions, they risk the hijacking of their democracy by ignorant demagogues, or the more… — Thomas M. Nichols Democracy Copy Share Image
“Most causes of ignorance can be overcome, if people are willing to learn. Nothing, however, can overcome the toxic confluence of arrogance,… — Thomas M. Nichols Arrogance Copy Share Image
“Many of the people who campaign against established knowledge are otherwise adept and successful in their daily lives. In some ways, it… — Thomas M. Nichols Arrogance 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
“The tendency to bring up Nazi Germany in any argument inspired Godwin’s Law and the related reductio ad Hiterlum. The deeply entrenched… — Thomas M. Nichols Argument Copy Share Image
“The most obvious problem is that the freedom to post anything online floods the public square with bad information and half-baked thinking.… — Thomas M. Nichols Conspiracy theories 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
“Laypeople complain about the rule of experts and they demand greater involvement in complicated national questions, but many of them only express… — Thomas M. Nichols Ignorance Copy Share Image
“Worse, what I find so striking today is not that people dismiss expertise, but that they do so with such frequency, on… — Thomas M. Nichols Internet 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
“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
“As the philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote in a 1928 essay, laypeople must evaluate expert claims by exercising their own careful logic as… — Thomas M. Nichols Doubt Copy Share Image
“In modern life outside of the academy, however, arguments and debates have no external review. Facts come and go as people find… — Thomas M. Nichols Argument Copy Share Image
“Thabo Mbeki, then the president of South Africa, seized on the idea that AIDS was caused not by a virus but by… — Thomas M. Nichols 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/quotes/i/d75/thomas-m-nichols-8933_books_what-happened-next-transfixed-many-reade_2052109.jpg)
