h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the papers today had a section called Dumb? which asked if people in the UK are getting thicker.

97% of young Brits didn't know who William Caxton was.
Do you?

And do you know who faught the English civil war?

Bill Caxton is a man who many English people think invented the thing he actually brought to London from Europe (did the Dutch develop it?). Today I have a modern version by my feet - amazing!

The English Civil War was fought mainly by the English (with a few others thrown in). I believe the 2 sides were called 'the old vested interests' and 'the new vested interests'. Subsequently, vests became very unpopular.

I have the same supplement from the same paper, and I think a closer look reveals, not that people are not getting dumber particularly, but that actually the majority of people have always been rather stupid. Consider for example the statistic that 36% of people over 65 do not know who the British Prime Minister was at the time of World War 2 (Churchill, just in case anyone was wondering ). And these are people who lived through that period in history - now, I think *that's* a shocking revelation.

These newspapers - even the less disreputable ones - have to sensationalise stories a little to get people to pay attention to them. The truth is perhaps less headline-grabbing, but possibly more worrying in the final analysis - most people in any age group are ignorant.

Whoops - bit of a misprint in there. One 'not' too many', I think. Let me repost my first sentence...

"I have the same supplement from the same paper, and I think a closer look reveals, not that people are getting dumber particularly, but that actually the majority of people have always been rather stupid..."

Then read on as before. Rather thick of me, I suppose...

William Caxton invented the printing press....

The English Civil War was fought between the Roundheads (Crommwell's troops) and the Caveliers (the Royalist troops)

'G'

So if people don't know who William Caxton was or who fought the English Civil War, does that necessarily make them thick? It's not the kind of thing you need to know on a day-to-day basis, is it?

I agree - I've seen quite a lot of these 'tests' that prove you're stupid if you don't know the answers. Well, I could apologise wholeheartedly for not knowing much about (English) history and admit to being thick - on the other hand, I could also point out that I'm not English, and I happen to have a degree - in maths, not history. Like most people on this planet, I don't know everything, but that doesn't make me thick.

Quite true!
Just because you do not know the answers to General Knowledge questions that do not originate in your country of origin, it does not prove you are thick.
Likewise, if your knowledge of mathematics, physics or chemistry is poor, that does not prove you are thick either. You could have a degree in psychology without a good grounding in any of them!!!

'G'

One interesting point to make about historical and general knowledge is that a lot of it is gained OUTSIDE formal education or AFTER leaving it. In my case only about 10% of my historical knowledge is anything to do with what I learnt in school.
I don't think that this has changed much over the years, or indeed will change much in the future.

I seem to remember reading that a frighteningly high proportion of the population of some country or other didn't know how many moons the earth has... the proportion of the general public who haven't a clue about mathematics and science is indeed very high. The same applies, I should think, to virtually every area of human endevour.

This is a shame, I think, but not particularly shocking or particularly worrying. More worrying is that virtually nobody - probably a few percent - has a reasonable understanding of statistics, probability and risk... which means that virtually nobody is capable of reacting sensibly to the health scares and similar stories that the media seems to love throwing at us these days.

That, I think, is something to be somewhat concerned about. But I don't see any reason to be worried about people who aren't sure whether an electron is bigger than an atom...

26199

Perhaps the real need for a good historical general knowledge is summed up by the old adage: who controls the past controls the future. A good point is the Hollywoodisation of history that was mentioned in another forum. If people aren't discovering real history, then there is obviously an opening for someone to come along and misapropriate it.
There's been the Enigma thing, Mel Gibson's The Patriot and a new film in which an American leads an escape from Colditz (no American's achieved that feat). It there was no one to argue about these, the chances are they'd become the accepted history.
It's the same with other areas, if you don't know about chemistry, how do you make sense of the BSE crisis?

*agrees with Lear*

but notice how the supplement tried to hide this fact by showing the % of young 'uns that didn't against the % of old 'uns that did.
I think a new supplement entitled "Desperate for Headlines?" is in order.

Interestingly, more young people knew what plays Shakespeare had written than old people. And, indeed, this Caxton fella, amongst others. Which shows something. Probably my anal-retentiveness at actually going and checking this sorta stuff.

My answer to almost all the questions, was "I don't know, frankly I don't care, and if I wanted to know I could find out easily enough." That's what the internet is for.

By the by, wasn't Chamberlain the PM at the start of WW2?

On a side note - Scott Adams (dilbert) amongst others has noticed that the amount of knowledge in the world is growing exponentially, while the ability of our brains to absorb knowledge is growing linearly, if at all.

Firehose aimed at teacup springs to mind...

Doesn't Entropy (or Information Theory) say that the total amount of information available is decreasing? If so, then we become relatively more knowledgable every day without trying!

Opposite I'm afraid - thermodynamics says that the amount of entropy in the world must always increase - which means the total amount of information that one *could* know must likewise increase. But that doesn't mean that the amount of information we hold about the universe must either increase or decrease in absolute terms.

So there ya go...

Opposite I'm afraid - thermodynamics says that the amount of entropy in the world must always increase - which means the total amount of information that one *could* know must likewise increase. But that doesn't mean that the amount of information we hold about the universe must either increase or decrease in absolute terms.

So there ya go...

>'notice how the supplement tried to hide this fact by showing the % of young
'uns that didn't against the % of old 'uns that did.'

Yeah, I spotted that one too. Nice trick, you have to admire them for it... How about a (totally gratuitous) special supplement on the sociological phenomenon of the (totally gratuitous) special supplement. That might keep a few more journalists off the dole queue, and kick a few more acres of rainforest into oblivion. And give us all something else to talk about, of course...

By the way, RedDice, did you read John Sutherland's piece, about halfway through the supplement? He was arguing a point similar to yours - people today are often less well informed general knowledge-wise simply because they know how to get hold of this material at the drop of a hat via the Web. Many of these young adults - the smart ones, anyway - use the spare time and energy to learn how to actually *think* with their minds. Rote learning is dead, thank goodness - we just don't need it anymore.

I thought Caxton made quality kitchen furniture...

And I do not consider myself thick!

(others might though!)

Lear, I agree whole-heartedly with your point about rote learning being less important than in the past (even the recent past). There is a greater emphasis on knowing where you can get information from.

However, do you really think that people today learn to 'think' more? My experience in school and college often led me to think otherwise and that the previous couple of generations had more initiative whereas modern students are more spoonfed. I sometimes feel that today's youth are more conformist and decadent than any previous generation with less real 'get up and go'.

Mind you, I'm 206. Please ignore an old man's ramblings.....

how exactly can you be conformist *and* decadent?