Several people have pointed out that the web facilitates unscientific, false,
and lunatic web sites. I believe that our educational and training programs are
now challenged to demonstrate validity and justify superiority over such
"competition". Since the transition from medieval times (the dark ages) to the
the age of reason, educators have increasing leaned on reason, rationality, and
scientific methods as self-evident or axiomatic givens. Now that postulate is
being challenged and we have two choices that I see: either moan and groan
about ignorance (casting pearls to swine) or get off our collective rears and
adapt our teaching methods to include motivation and justification for why our
answers and methods are better than than the fortune
teller/psychic/numerologist/guru/latest fad/etc.
I am not saying that this is going to be easy. Just saying that we are
academics and do what we tell you won't cut it anymore. We were not trained to
defend our faith in reason and we are now called on to do exactly that. As we
strengthen our curricula, we must also train the next generation of educators
to defend and promote reason in their teaching.
Time is of the essence and the problem is getting much worse quickly. For
example, the other night I learned that there are something like 135 White
Supremacist hate sites and 75 Black Supremacist hate sites that have popped up,
primarily aimed at middle class teenagers. Won't those teenagers be our entry
level teachers, trainers, and employees in a few short years? How will YOU
train hate mongers, loonies, and faddists to collaboratively and
participatively work together in empowered teams?
--
Prof. John L. Naman naman+@pitt.edu http://www.pitt.edu/~naman