As the writer Susan Jacoby put it in 2008, the most disturbing aspect of the American march toward ignorance is “not lack of knowledge per se but arrogance about that lack of knowledge.” The problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it’s the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place… . The toxic brew of anti-rationalism and ignorance hurts discussions of U.S. public policy on topics
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