The Anti Intellectualism of Irish Society.

[NeilMcD]

Does anybody find it frustrating that the media and the politcians the the general public react in dismay to stories about frogs being counted and how much it costs. This anti intellectulism is a joke. These sort of populist reactions are becoming more and more common.

[John83]

The specific example you give is very much media lead. It's unfortunately driven by a number of factors, including a dismissive attitude towards science reporting in the media, increased pressure on modern reporters as media cut costs in a less profitable era, and poor media communication skills of many scientists. Ben Goldacre (http://www.badscience.net/about-dr-ben-goldacre/) talks about it extensively in his book, Bad Science. I highly recommend it, and it's only £3.57 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/000728487X/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=471057153&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0007240198&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=04FSG4DH8XQ7ZH5373HJ) on Amazon right now.

[Reality Bites]

Does anybody find it frustrating that the media and the politcians the the general public react in dismay to stories about frogs being counted and how much it costs. This anti intellectulism is a joke. These sort of populist reactions are becoming more and more common.

Blame Skynews, The Internet, X-Factor and Facebook, accelerated history (best of the noughties and we're still in them just). Dumbed down through progress.

[micls]

Best Thread Title Ever!

[dahamsta]

Ben Goldacre (http://www.badscience.net/about-dr-ben-goldacre/) talks about it extensively in his book, Bad Science. I highly recommend it, and it's only £3.57 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/000728487X/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=471057153&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0007240198&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=04FSG4DH8XQ7ZH5373HJ) on Amazon right now.Seconded. Also Trick or Treatment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_or_Treatment) by Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh.

[NeilMcD]

Best Thread Title Ever!

yeah I know the irony of my bad spelling and the title was not missed by me. Sorry it was a typo.

Cheers whoever corrected the thread title.

[NeilMcD]

The specific example you give is very much media lead. It's unfortunately driven by a number of factors, including a dismissive attitude towards science reporting in the media, increased pressure on modern reporters as media cut costs in a less profitable era, and poor media communication skills of many scientists. Ben Goldacre (http://www.badscience.net/about-dr-ben-goldacre/) talks about it extensively in his book, Bad Science. I highly recommend it, and it's only £3.57 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/000728487X/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=471057153&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0007240198&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=04FSG4DH8XQ7ZH5373HJ) on Amazon right now.

Yeah have read the book and its top class .It was one of the reasons why I put up the thread but Enda Kenny's reaction to the frog counting just confirmed it for me. It really was a low point in this area for the leader of the opposition to react in such a manner. The dismissal of science is scandalous.

I think it was Einstein who said that, if bees became extinct the human population would last about 4 years, but I am sure if we had a guy whose job was to protect bees etc, his job would have the **** taken out of it by the daily mail or the panel or some other cynical media organ.

[John83]

One tiny cause for optimism is that this seems to be a fairly consistent thing - I've read examples from throughout the age of enlightenment* - so perhaps this is just human nature, and not some looming modern catastrophe.

*I'm damned if I can remember any of them - I'd be a much more interesting conversationalist if I could remember a tenth of the stuff I read.

[Bluebeard]

The bias is, in my opinion, not simply against science, but against all peeping of high-brows above the parapets. There is at times an almost glorious glee at "not getting it". It doesn't take a particularly clever statement to elicit the "Over my head: aren't you the berk for being clever" gesture. Or using a word that may not be common parlance, and not currently being pushed by RTÉ as the big or foreign sounding word that is acceptably intelligent - why should that bring about the response "Did you eat a dictionary last night?". From teachers on occasion.

In fairness, the same attitude has existed in Britain, probably worse and certainly so since the era of Thatcher. It is hard to spot anyone who could be publicly denoted as a famous British Intellectual, especially now - remove people known chiefly for doing something on the BBC and you are floundering completey. At least in Ireland there have been a few who have been recognised intellectuals without recourse to RTÉ (I am aware of the contradiction inherent in that idea). Indeed, many would suggest that when Garret Fitzgerald became Taoiseach, the nation elected one. Though obviously he didn't last.

[tiktok]

RTE should organise an ALL Ireland Intellectual contest and get the public to text vote in for their favourite.

[Dodge]

Blame Skynews, The Internet, X-Factor and Facebook, accelerated history (best of the noughties and we're still in them just). Dumbed down through progress.

In a thread about populist thinking sometimes being slightly off track, we have a prime candidate.

The one thing I'll say is that it most certainly isn't confied to Ireland

[pineapple stu]

The one thing I'll say is that it most certainly isn't confied to Ireland
Sad but true. Not that I'd know, but any article in The Sun about scientific research always describes the scientists as "boffins", as if they're some sort of wierd bunch of not-quite-humans, perhaps with their own exhibit in the zoo.

[John83]

Sad but true. Not that I'd know, but any article in The Sun about scientific research always describes the scientists as "boffins", as if they're some sort of wierd bunch of not-quite-humans, perhaps with their own exhibit in the zoo.
This rankles with me too. It encourages the idea that science is something too difficult to understand, some arcane black art rather than just a systematic, logical, self-critical apprasal of knowledge.

What's worse is that education seems to feed that notion rather than help dismiss it. The number of education systems which have moved in the direction of '2 + 2 = 5 is a valid artistic expression of Timmy's creativity. There are no wrong answers' is distressing.

[OneRedArmy]

Does anybody find it frustrating that the media and the politcians the the general public react in dismay to stories about frogs being counted and how much it costs. This anti intellectulism is a joke. These sort of populist reactions are becoming more and more common.
http://foot.ie/forums/showpost.php?p=1259164&postcount=56

[thischarmingman]

Does anybody find it frustrating that the media and the politcians the the general public react in dismay to stories about frogs being counted and how much it costs.


Yeah have read the book and its top class .It was one of the reasons why I put up the thread but Enda Kenny's reaction to the frog counting just confirmed it for me. It really was a low point in this area for the leader of the opposition to react in such a manner. The dismissal of science is scandalous.


Apologies, but what happened with the frogs? I can't seem to find anything on it...


Also Bad Science should be on the National Curriculum.

[NeilMcD]

http://www.politics.ie/green-party/120113-gormley-spend-120k-counting-frogs.html


http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/kenny-hits-out-at-125000-frog-counting-project-437433.html (listen to the audio file on it)

[Cymro]

From a British point of view, this happens just as much over here too, as it does in the US, and probably in every other country as well. The media with science as with everything else is quick to mislead and distort. But we shouldn't believe that people necessarily blindly accept what the media tell them. Most of the people I know realise that 99% of what the mainstream media say is rubbish. As for politicians, I disagree that they are all that bad. If you actually read the content on parliamentary debates and such the opinions seem to be reasonably well considered in general. Obviously you get some nonsense which makes it into the headlines but I'd argue that it's less endemic than is widely thought. I actually think the arts are just as misunderstood as the sciences and would cite John83's statement as an example of that. Regardless of the merits and demerits of a liberal education, it is almost certainly not the case that anyone in a state school seriously teaches to kids that 2+2=5.

[ArdeeBhoy]

any article in The Sun about scientific research

Hmm. They're not exactly compatible....
And given what they've said about Ireland over the years, it's embarassing the 'paper' even retails in the country. Or people buy it.

Though it is anathema is to Intellectualism in any form..

[John83]

From a British point of view, this happens just as much over here too, as it does in the US, and probably in every other country as well.
I don't think anyone would deny that. I think the title was intended to focus the conversation rather than to imply that we're necessarily unusual in this respect.


The media with science as with everything else is quick to mislead and distort. But we shouldn't believe that people necessarily blindly accept what the media tell them. Most of the people I know realise that 99% of what the mainstream media say is rubbish.
This doesn't stop anyone from absorbing distorted information and reusing it later as fact. We don't think about this, but it happens all the time. Vaccine scares are an example of this with very serious consequences.


As for politicians, I disagree that they are all that bad. If you actually read the content on parliamentary debates and such the opinions seem to be reasonably well considered in general. Obviously you get some nonsense which makes it into the headlines but I'd argue that it's less endemic than is widely thought.
I don't doubt that there's some truth to this, but as long as decisions are ultimately made with political motives as a powerful driving force, the right thing will get shelved.


I actually think the arts are just as misunderstood as the sciences and would cite John83's statement as an example of that. Regardless of the merits and demerits of a liberal education, it is almost certainly not the case that anyone in a state school seriously teaches to kids that 2+2=5.
I lament an education system which can produce someone who can't detect a simple exaggeration. Nevertheless, I'll refer you to, e.g. Why Johnny Can't Add: the Failure of the New Math, which explains how a dominant teaching paradigm produced a generation of students who were functionally mathematically illiterate.

[Cymro]

I lament an education system which can produce someone who can't detect a simple exaggeration. Nevertheless, I'll refer you to, e.g. Why Johnny Can't Add: the Failure of the New Math, which explains how a dominant teaching paradigm produced a generation of students who were functionally mathematically illiterate.

Well, I kind of guessed you were exaggerating there, but I suppose my point was that encouraging creative thought as an educational principle will not lead to denying simple facts. There are problems with our education system (by that I mean the British one, I'm not too familiar with the Irish one but would assume it's fairly similar), but many more of these problems are down to the league tables system which forces teachers to teach in a way that encourages passage of exams and good grades rather than actual understanding of the subject.

[irishultra]

Irish education system is one of the better ones i've heard of, although the teaching of religion and compulsory Irish are like the blackspot imo.

[superfrank]

Also, the PE situation is laughable in some places. I think a lot more needs to be done done in that area, especially in VEC schools.

[John83]

It has a decent reputation, but a number of glaring flaws. Superfrank is right on PE, but there's also a massive emphasis placed on rote learning and consequent failures in any attempts to teach any number of other things, particularly critical thinking and oral communication skills.

[dahamsta]

Our education system is going the way of our telecommunications network post TE; down the toilet. The third level system is all over the shop, but the primary system is a complete shambles, with teachers expected to pay for nearly all of the teaching equipment out of their own pockets. They either will, because it's a vocation, and they'll live on the breadline because of it - particularly now after the budget - of they won't and they'll give a sub-standard education. It's a bloody disgrace that they're put in that position.

Don't even get me started on the portacabins littering the country, and how the money spent on them would have paid for replacement buildings ten times over at this stage; or the level of involvement of the catholic church, which is particularly horrifying in light of the recent report. It's just a mess.

[Riddickcule]

Also, the PE situation is laughable in some places. I think a lot more needs to be done done in that area, especially in VEC schools.
We've 1 P.E class a week and it's at 9.00am Tuesday morning !!:mad:

[endabob1]

Irish education system is one of the better ones i've heard of, although the teaching of religion and compulsory Irish are like the blackspot imo.

I agre with religion, but I think there needs to be a culture shift for the country to move towards non-denominational schools.
Personally I'm all for Irish being taught, I think it's taught badly though (this is second hand info from nieces & nephews still in or recently finished school) and there needs to be much more emphasis on the spoken word and less on language structure and literature.

[Fr Damo]

We've 1 P.E class a week and it's at 9.00am Tuesday morning !!:mad:



That's a shocking time to have a PE class. Most kids are only awake an hour or two at most by then and at risk of.... I won't go into it but not good planning.

I also agree with Dahamsta

[peadar1987]

The education system here is an absolute shambles, I agree.

-I think Irish should be taught, but the DOE need to pull their heads out of their holes and realise it's not a first language for the vast majority of the population, so trying to teach people to critically analyse poetry and literature is useless, when they can't ask their way to the shops.

-I don't think English literature for the leaving should be compulsory. I don't think it's something you need, or even something that's particularly useful. It should be an option, maybe take the lit sections of the Irish and English papers and have a separate literature course.

-The Catholic church need to be removed from state education. Religious schools could still have a place in the country for people who want to send their kids to them, but the church should fund them for themselves. My mum is a teacher, and she has a friend working in a catholic state school, who has to keep secret from the school board that she is "living in sin", because she has a very real fear she'll lose her job. Schools like this categorically should not receive funding from the state.


I think the main problem in the education system is just a chronic lack of investment. If you're trying to get out of a recession, or indeed at any time, education should be the last thing to fall victim to cutbacks. I'd even cut back on health care before education.

[weecountyman]

Overall our education system suffices to survive, but it is rotting from the bottom up. In my old primary school (now a massive remove from one where we had 5 classes in the boys school to more than 15) in the boys section there are a grand total of 2 male teachers on staff, and one is a non-teaching Principal. Sport has gone backwards and many primary schools are in the same boat. There are brilliant female coaches that I've met who are better than male counterparts, but in general teaching terms the unbalanced nature of staff doesn't help overall.

Language teaching is well behind where it should be and I agree with the posts above that it's more important to speak a language than to delve into the intricacies of poetry and drama, leave that for an optional course and University.

The times of the schoolday is largely useless too. There is so much wasted time in a day where a continental method is far more useful. Get the kids in at 8 or 8.30, give them a 20minute break and send them home by 2.30pm. Right now schools resemble daycare more closely than anything else.

My cousin teaches in a pretty good fee paying school in Dublin and she told me that compared to our generation's level (mid-30's) kids at 17 are less capable of writing compositions at any proper level, and their learning processes are so warped from poor development from Primary up that they are entering the workforce handicapped. It is a shocking statistic from the CSO that almost 10% of 20-29 year olds have "great difficulty" reading and writing, but it isn't far from what I've heard back from teacher friends.

Overall we have a good history of education and there is far greater access to 3rd level than ever before, however the dumbing down of many subjects is worrying.

I don't know if the answer is to pour in money or take some away, but respect needs to be put back into the teaching profession to bring things back to a decent level, in my opinion of course.

[peadar1987]

Overall we have a good history of education and there is far greater access to 3rd level than ever before, however the dumbing down of many subjects is worrying.


One thing that particularly annoys me is this attitude of that if people are doing poorly in exams, you make the exam easier so your statistics look nicer. That's not me being flippant, this was actually done with the geography course.

Another thing that particularly annoyed me was the applied maths course in my LC year. People were doing much better than average (mainly because only people who were really keen at maths did the course in the first place), so they started changing the marking scheme after the exam to shift marks towards questions people didn't do so well on, just so they got some nicer numbers to publish.

But most people would still rather watch the X Factor or Big Brother than hear about something truly scandalous like the state of our country's education system.

**spits at Fianna Fáil**

[Poor Student]

-I don't think English literature for the leaving should be compulsory. I don't think it's something you need, or even something that's particularly useful. It should be an option, maybe take the lit sections of the Irish and English papers and have a separate literature course.

I can't speak for all continental education systems but I know several educational systems in Eastern and Central Europe including Slovakia and Slovenia would have a far more rigorous education on the literary side of the primary language. You would study the entire history of literature from its beginings to modern day being able to discern different periods, know the plot and style of many key texts and biographical information about authors. The amount of literature we have to familiarise ourselves with is quite miniscule by comparison.

[weecountyman]

Peadar - it's not surprising that such happens, in 1998 there was some blip on papers and higher history looked like dropping "below the acceptable range" and the DOE instructed markers to give special attention to students who were struggling. In one way it's fair, in another it makes no sense. However I do prefer our marking system to most others in the world, Poor Student triggered this in my overlaboured brain.

Poor student, you are so right, in many countries in Europe there is a greater volume of national literature to deal with. However in most it is geared towards the streams who are deemed able to handle it, or that it is appropriate to their eventual destination. I've met Russians who can quote, ad nauseum, Pushkin, Goncharov etc, and others who scratch their heads at the thought of same.

One good thing in our education system (the whole way through to 3rd level first degrees for sure) is the anonymity of marking. If you work hard, do your best and sit a good paper, you get a reflective grade. In (just a couple of egs here) Russia, Serbia, Poland, Lithuania and the USA you can buy your way through the system. Eastern Europe is the worst, however 3rd level in America is attrocious, especially the scholarship brigade, while Canada isn't far behind. In Russia your own teacher grades you the whole way through the system and even this year (according to Moscow Times) the new and improved central grading apparatus ground to a halt because of local corruption. As bad as it is for us, everyone has a fair chance (I duck for cover saying this).

[Poor Student]

Poor student, you are so right, in many countries in Europe there is a greater volume of national literature to deal with. However in most it is geared towards the streams who are deemed able to handle it, or that it is appropriate to their eventual destination. I've met Russians who can quote, ad nauseum, Pushkin, Goncharov etc, and others who scratch their heads at the thought of same.

I've spent a good deal of time in Slovenia over the past decade and as someone who has never studied English beyond the Leaving Cert I don't know how many times people of a much lower standard of education name dropped or mentioned a book or even literary period I'd never heard of (although perhaps that says more about me than our respective education systems;)). That said, I don't think it's something we should necessarily aspire to. Contrary to our own opinion of our Leaving Cert system, such a system which aspires to have the student rote learn the entire history of literature whereas our own system would give a few set texts through which we would explore different literary techniques and perform a more detailed analysis. A more qualitative than quantitative approach in my opinion.


One good thing in our education system (the whole way through to 3rd level first degrees for sure) is the anonymity of marking. If you work hard, do your best and sit a good paper, you get a reflective grade. In (just a couple of egs here) Russia, Serbia, Poland, Lithuania and the USA you can buy your way through the system. Eastern Europe is the worst, however 3rd level in America is attrocious, especially the scholarship brigade, while Canada isn't far behind. In Russia your own teacher grades you the whole way through the system and even this year (according to Moscow Times) the new and improved central grading apparatus ground to a halt because of local corruption. As bad as it is for us, everyone has a fair chance (I duck for cover saying this).

I'd completely agree with you there. The system in the areas that I'm familiar with (Central and Eastern Europe) you are not examined en masse at the end of a module with all who sat the module in that session, instead you have a seemingly infinite amount of opportunities to take exams in different sittings in different semesters at a time of your choosing. You could have someone who is in the 4th year of their degree who still hasn't passed first year stats. The system is not anonomous and a lecturer could hold you back or push you forward dependiing on how they liked or disliked you. People also procrastinate and hold of exams and take forever to finish their degrees. Our 3rd level system is much more structured and straight forward.