Democratic Underground - I see a range of problems, including what you say

but also including laziness and a fairly widespread disrespect for intelligence and learning inherent in our society. I don't blame "the media" or "society" per se, but everyone is at fault in some ways. We need to praise and laud education the way we do financial success, sports ability, hard work, and other talents.

Obviously we do enjoy the fruits of such things in many ways, and in some ways intelligence and success are intertwined, but not enough. How many famous intelligent people can you name off the top of your head? Now compare that to the stars in whatever entertainment form you prefer (music, sports, acting, etc.) and maybe you'll see what I mean.

There are exceptions; people who we revere as a culture, but overall when the word "Einstein" is used as an insult, I would say we have a disdain for smart people. "Hey Brainiac!" is the kind of thing which makes the smart and unpopular kids cringe.

While this has happened for decades, I feel it is only getting worse. And no, there is nothing wrong with enjoying the aforementioned entertainment stars, just as many of those same stars ARE incredibly intelligent people, I just feel that as a society we need to stop equating intelligence with negativity.

An interesting article on scientific literacy:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2115519,00.html

We take our young children to science museums, then as they get older we stop. In spite of threats like global warming and avian flu, most adults have very little understanding of how the world works. So, 50 years on from CP Snow's famous 'Two Cultures' essay, is the old divide between arts and sciences deeper than ever?
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Given that science informs so much of our culture, and so many of us have such patchy knowledge, it is surprising that such embarrassments are not routine. It's half a century since CP Snow put forward the idea of the 'Two Cultures', the intractable divide between the sciences and the humanities, first in an article in the New Statesman, then in a lecture series at Cambridge and finally in a book. Back then, Snow, who was both a novelist and a physicist, used to employ a test at dinner parties to demonstrate his argument.

'A good many times,' he suggested, 'I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice, I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold; it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific equivalent of: have you ever read a work of Shakespeare's?'
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Angier's tipping point, the reason she came to write the book, was a decision made by her sister. When the second of her two children turned 13 the sister decided that it was time to let their membership lapse in two familiar family haunts: the science museum and the zoo. They were, the implication went, ready to put away childish things, ready to go to the theatre and the art gallery, places where there was none of this 'mad pinball pinging from one hands-on science exhibit to the next, pounding on knobs to make artificial earthquakes'. They had grown out of science.
(more at link)

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