Opinion Zone - Comments for "NYTimes "Dumb and Dumber" Americans - Duh... what about develoeprs?"

In two words: educational

ext237 — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:57:19 -0500

In two words: educational system.

Most good developers are self-starters, eager and motivated to be self-taught. They learn how (or are biologically pre-disposed?) to consume and recall specific information quickly and easily.

The educational system at large, especially the high-school level, no longer teach the skills needed to learn, memorize and recall; now its all about how to pick the statistically most-correct answer from 4 possible options on a scantron. Standardized tests are used to judge the quality of public school, so many schools focus only on how to take standardized tests.

I found myself in a conversation about politics with a woman who works in the same building I do. She is a high school graduate with some college experience.

She was surprised to find out that Bush was the President of the United States, she thought he was just President of Texas.

The ignorance stems from the

fsilber — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:36:48 -0500

The ignorance stems from the kind of people we have working culturally influential positions in general, and particularly in education. For example:

At the universities we have professors of humanities and the liberal arts who confidently reject religion saying they believe instead in science, while at the same time, showing no shame or ignorance at their complete lack of understanding of science. It's as if they're saying, "The theories of Newton and Einstein are more important than the Bible -- not not important enough for me to trouble my pretty head over it."

Then, when was the last time you heard a professor of education argue that we should try to load up elementary school students with facts and concrete skills? No, they all argue instead that children should be taught not what to think, but "how" to think. Add that to the self-esteem movement in which teachers are expected to convince empty minds that they all are wonderful just they way they are (so why _should_ a student feel a need to break his head over names, dates and places?).

Then you have the people who noticed in the 1950s that high school graduates tended to earn more than drop-outs. Instead of recognizing that this was because graduates tended to be more intelligent, self-disciplined, culturally sophisticated and socially connected than drop-outs (an elitist explanation they refused on political grounds to entertain) -- they attributed graduates' greater success to a fetish for diplomas on the part of employers. They decided that they could fight elitism and inequality by watering down academic and behavioral standards until everyone could get a diploma (even if they were stupid and ignorant). Now they're doing the same to give everyone college diplomas.

Also, it is difficult to make progress if you cannot measure progress, and all objective measures of academic progress were rejected on the basis that they were "culturally discriminatory" (lest they hurt the feelings of members of groups whose statistics on these measures were particularly bad).

Hi Rick,I think it just

globetrot — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:12:16 -0500

Hi Rick,

I think it just means that this person who did not know xyz is not knowledgable .... i don't think it means everybody else is the same ..... every country has its share of smart people and not so smart ones...

By the way....recently on MTV, the host was trying to ask people on the street about our republic day and independence day, and if i remember it correctly, one among 10 people interviewed got it right ...... should we look at this and say indians are not smart ? ... that generality would be incorrect in my openion.

similarly if someone judges the software programmers from america as dumb, based on a article, that would be incorrect as well.

Dont worry ... i (we) know that there are lot of smart guys like yourself out there ;-)

cheers,

As I understood it, the

ch24699 — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:18:35 -0500

As I understood it, the point of the NYT article wasn't so much that many citizens are dumb--which surely has been the case throughout many cultures, throughout much of history--but that being dumb is socially acceptable in America, and being smart marks you as a freak.

I don't think that you see that kind of anti-intellectualism very much among software developers. Most successful developers are proud of their knowledge, seek to enhance it, and respect those who are smarter than they are. After all, you don't get very far in this business by being dumb.

I think the more interesting question is whether other cultures value knowledge--and knowledge professionals such as software developers--more than the U.S. does. Maybe the overall culture has an influence on the quality and quantity of software developers? Many of the smartest developers I work with grew up in China, India, and Eastern Europe.

I grew up in Germany, and while I can't say that I got any social brownie points for being good in math and science in high school, it didn't stigmatize me either. My wife grew up in Vietnam, and she says that in her high school it was actually a social negative to be bad in math--what is fun about dating someone dumb? Here, in the U.S. of A., my children would be too ashamed to tell their classmates the truth--that daddy got a degree in math. They'll say that I run numbers on the waterfront.

Is this a recent development? In the 1950s and 60s, American science was the envy of the world, and we still benefit from the infrastructure investments of those times. But there is precious little investment these days, perhaps because the social norms have changed. That should worry us because it affects our business.

Cheers,

Cay

I would put it slightly

bbuffone — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:24:46 -0500

I would put it slightly differently. I think the American software culture is very developer focused; compared to Europe, which is more architect focused.

I think what is going on is

bloid — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:40:46 -0500

I think what is going on is a current global lack of "groundbreaking" news for journalists to report on, and a tendancy towards people wanting to "look down" on others...

There are examples of this sort of stupidity all over the world, but the worst are held up as some sort of "yardstick" measure of their entire nations intelligence, and now -- through the magic of YouTube et al. -- the world can look, point and revel in their warm superior feeling that they get in the pit of their stomach (a superior feeling or slight self-loathing? You decide) ;)

The show's title immediately characterises the sorts of people who are going to enter. No-one with intelligence would want to be on the show, as it is a lose-lose situation. At worst, you are proven "less smart" than a ten year old, and at best you have nothing to really brag about

I'm frantically checking this post for poor grammar and spelling which would show me up replying to a post about intelligence ;)