{"id":89200,"date":"2024-05-25T05:00:11","date_gmt":"2024-05-25T09:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=89200"},"modified":"2024-05-24T16:21:36","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T20:21:36","slug":"education-versus-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/05\/25\/education-versus-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"“Education” versus “learning”"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Astral Codex Ten<\/em>, Scott Alexander<\/a> discusses some of the ideas from Bryan Caplan’s book The Case Against Education<\/em>:<\/p>\n

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Source here<\/a>. Note deranged horizontal axis.<\/p><\/div>\n

Education isn’t just about facts. But it’s partly about facts. Facts are easy to measure, and they’re a useful signpost for deeper understanding. If someone has never heard of Chaucer, Dickens, Melville, Twain, or Joyce, they probably haven’t learned to appreciate great literature. If someone can’t identify Washington, Lincoln, or either Roosevelt, they probably don’t understand the ebb and flow of American history. So what facts does the average American know?<\/p>\n

In a 1999 poll, only 66% of Americans<\/a> age 18-29 knew that the US won independence from Britain (as opposed to some other country). About 47% of Americans<\/a> can name all three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial). 37%<\/a> know the closest planet to the sun (Mercury). 58%<\/a> know which gas causes most global warming (carbon dioxide). 44%<\/a> know Auschwitz was the site of a concentration camp. Fewer than 50%<\/a> (ie worse than chance) can correctly answer a true-false question about whether electrons are bigger than atoms.<\/p>\n

These results are scattered across many polls, which makes them vulnerable to publication bias; I can’t find a good unified general knowledge survey of the whole population. But there’s a great survey of university students<\/a>. Keeping in mind that this is a highly selected, extra-smart population, here are some data points:<\/p>\n