Blowouts, elementary school, and the future of democracy

And it all starts -- or is at least reflected --at "the top" Ron. Our government's reponse to all of this is to hold congressional hearings and send our top team of lawyers to the gulf. That's how we get the technical job done now! Apparently our culture/media/government, more and more, only values law degrees from Harvard, rather than technical degrees... and this will be our ulitmate downfall. Can't we just litigate a solution to everything?

Great article Ron! I have to agree that there is a clear link between the education of the populous and the level at which news media is presented. Unfortunately, it isn't going to get much better in the years to come. With the new educational model that is being experimented with across the country, the goal is to move all students towards one level of substandard mediocrity. The country now finds it more important that every citizen understands most fundamental basics as opposed to actually educating anybody in a worthwhile manor. Essentially, if everyone in the country can be educated to an eight grade level, the system will be "satisfied". Forget about America competing a world market.

Great article!
NRJ

Amen. Well said.

I agree with you Ron. I have read about this oil well a number of times, but I have never read the diameter of the casing, details of the well, or even the pressure at the cap. If the public knew that kind of information, the well would be plugged by now. It might be that information of that sort is withheld, so BP can try to salvage the well. An informed public will act to protect itself.

This problem is not limited to BP and the oil spill. For example, TV news has covered the "Red Shirts" uprising in Thailand by showing pictures of violence. There has been no analysis of the reasons for the uprising. The "Red Shirts" claim that that the current government took power illegitimately, backed by the military and the judiciary. The media should provide some background about whether or not this is true. Too much of the news we get is based on arousing fear or emotion. The facts and analysis get lost. I believe that this is a danger to our democracy.

Oh Ron, you just don't get it! Don't you remember college where the Journalism major WAS the gusher of technological ignorance? We reap what we sow.

Great article! Like you, I've become frustrated with the hideous job of reporting that we've received. I looked for a description of a blowout preventer, and only got a vague picture with unlabeled details, and no explanation. Instead of hard information, we get a recap of people's emotional responses, the president's commentary, and other irrelevant things. People who thoroughly take it for granted when they walk out to the driveway and turn the key in their family truckster, form opinions totally driven by the reporting they receive, and revile the evil, greedy oil companies, feeling that rush of righteousness when they blog or write their letters to the editor, completely unaware of the tireless work and the billions of dollars spent on their behalf. And what choice is given them, when they have such tripe to read in their newspapers, or on their web screens? Support technical education for our news staffs!

I agree with what a couple of others have already pointed out. The media is a corporation and like other corporations their goal is to maximize profits. If clear and coherent reporting generated revenues it would be done but as it is, shallow emotionally charged reports bring the most bang for the buck.
Has anyone out there read "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman? It deals with issues brought up in this discussion, specifically the negative effect of the media on culture. I haven't read it myself yet but it’s on my list.

I agree wholeheartedly with Ron Wilson. I saw a Dateline hour-long report on TV about the spill and all they did was focus on the blame and horrific effects. Why do they consider the viewing public to be so shallow minded ? I really
dislike the way the journalists decide what we need to hear. And, I really need to see more of the facts and events that led up to this accident...something that dateline only touched on.

You mention Oakland. It is worth noting that their science program was given a good kick start by their collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The DOE labs are mandated to work with schools to further science education.
They did a great job that is still continuing. Good use of our tax dollars.

Nothing more canh be expexctedc from a press whose Math course was French and whose Sciewnce Course was not required for a Liberal Arts Degree.

One other comment to Tzimtzum:
For you to blame this on progressives is laughable and again part of the problem with our discourse. But if I had to trust the government or BP, I think I'm going to trust the government. BP care nothing save for profits; whereas the government has bigger fish to fry. Corporations are not persons and therefore when given the rights of persons, act as sociopaths in pursuit of money. Your comment is just not serious in this context. Big government won two world wars, a cold war, the fire department will show up if my house catches fire, the cops will show up if I've been bad or good. By the way, if you have a bigger house you should pay HIGHER TAXES because it takes MORE RESOURCES to address your fire than mine!

A lot of folks hit on my comments and I cannot address them all; however to spiritualmadman I do have a comment. If you think evolution is simply about random chance, then you are VERY ignorant on the subject. I think you represent the problem we have here. I will not and cannot attack your prowess as a good technician; however, if you are a good thinker, I suggest you EDUCATE yourself on the subject before you go misrepresenting the science of evolution!

I'm a design engineer in Medical Instrumentation. I agree with your article, however it also needs to go one step further. Where were the engineers when this well was designed? Where is the hazard analysis? I know of no engineer that would design something of this importance without some redundancy. Did some non-engineer corporate officer make a design decision?

While the American public are jumping up and down and getting their knickers in a twist it might just be worth saying 1 word. Bhopal

"panen et circenses" =bred and circus] called the plebs =mob] in the antic Rome

I'm glad to see you expressing opinions which have been a pet rant of mine, and I know many others such as yourself, for some time. All forms of journalism abandoned educating and enlightening its audience years ago and more recently, has even abandoned providing factual news (noticed how you never hear a word about Haiti anymore?). On the subject at hand, ever stop to think of the implications behind the events closest to the rig explosion? Never mind -5000 feet and what can't be done now, how about the blast of gas and oil that erupted from a good pipe string ON THE SURFACE at 5000 feet! Think about the physics of that for a moment. What were these people thinking?

i think there is a quote from Edward R. Murrow that has much meaning to this excellent piece.
Much of our news has become entertainment, and not education. :(

I'm an engineer with a PE (NJ). we hired an ME for the summer. Once, I asked him to get me a Half inch shaft collar. He didn't have a clue! I told him if I were the chief, he wouldn't be working for me. He got a job somewhere in north Jersey, designing large valves for the nuclear energy industry.

As an editorial in the latest issue of EE Times suggests, not only is the general public clueless in the scientific disciplines, Congress and the White House staff are also technically illiterate. Nonetheless, these pompous baffoons in D.C. still have the "audacity" (now where have I heard this word before) to ask idiotic, brainless, questions under the pretense of finding the truth. The fact is that the whole scenario becomes an exercise in self aggrandizing--"and Nero played on as Rome burned."
Ron Wilson in his piece observes, "Americas solution to every problem is to declare war on it like somehow that is going to rally the foolish." But this, too, is nothing new--it's right out of the writing of William James, "The Moral Equivalent of War," and one of the banners being held high by the Progressives now in Washington.
Has anything changed since the era of James? Hardly. Nonetheless, the current administration--just as others--will find some way to declare a struggle against something else. Currently, we have an ongoing war on poverty, fat, crime, drugs, smoking, pollution, cancer, diabetes, carbon dioxide, nuclear power, conventional power, McDonald's Happy Meals, and of course, terrorism--and the list goes on and on.
I am not that afraid of a dumbed down public as I am of a government which attempts to manipulate the ignorant to further and to enable its own world view. Until we have elected officials who believe in following the US Consitution rather than an agenda which looks like its been penned by Geroges Sorel and Martin Heidegger, I would not expect things to improve anytime too soon.

Televangelists and like opportunists serve their self-interest by gaining followers with simple views that are outdated in an educated world. Not only do they encourage ignorance, they make education an adversary, which is dragging our country down. We shouldn't be surprised ifwe become irrelevant and out of work due to clinging to the past and not preparing for the future.

During Toyota's recent 'unintended acceleration' problems, as soon as Toyota started talking about mechanical re-designs of gas pedals, the media immediately lost interest and ran off to find some other emotionally charged story. Isn't it interesting that Toyotas suddenly stopped going out of control as soon as the media wasn't looking for those stories? The mainstream media is not interested in understanding anything, they only want to get us 'outraged' about something to keep us watching them and their advertising.

True, SpiritualMadMan, simple faith is far easier than complex chains of reasoning based on experience. But it's not useful unless its assertions (however coincidentally) do not disagree. Irrational faith in unverifiable antique preachments is fundamentally valueless.

What did you think that No Child Left Behind was going to do? If all we do is teach for the test, then every part of teaching critical thinking is lost. Music, arts, science any thing that requires creative talent is going to be ignored. And what about vocational ed? not every child wants or needs to go to college.

I don't believe in Evolution. I *AM* a technologist having been an Electronics Technician for over 40 years in many differing disciplines from engineering design to programming to Metrology.
To believe in Evolution requires a person to jump from a Hypothesis the natural Law without rigorous testing of the interim Theories.
It takes far less "Faith" for me to believe in a Divine Engineer that to believe in the Generalized Random Chance most lay-evolutionist believe in.

Excelent post Ron. I've been lodging the same complaint for weeks within my small sphere of influence. I hope we can get people to start stepping up to intellectual challenges instead of simply pleading ignorance.
Instead of the media (TV) hiring lawyers to read the news, how about an engineer who has the critical thinking and analytic abilities to actually understand the issues?

Your strong words are welcome, Ron. And echoing savroD, I would add that the evolutionary process that produced our current governmental structure does not permit reason - and reasonable discourse - to survive. Todays political system produces too many individuals who bring to mind Plato's lament of long ago - “In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.” Rhetoric replaces reasoned thought when most public debate comprises 140-character tweets.

Thats normal rise and fall of societies? I guess the situation is similar at least in the entire western hemisphere. Think of the Egypts or the Inca. Few 100 years from now we may be unable to understand how a hole could be made at this place. Knowledge is easily lost by not teaching it. Information is then lost after loosing knowledge how to rebuild and use our tools. Infrastructure collapses. Then we start from scratch...

I have noticed this decay, as well. The technical news coverage has not been noticeably different than the popular press in its coverage, either. The lack of a presumption of technological understanding on the part of the public, or of the technical engineering community outside of the deep water drilling niche, bodes poorly for our collective future. Cultures seem to develop and decay in cycles that exhibit considerably short-term correlation coefficients. If so, the downward turn in technological illiteracy may continue for yet some time. Perhaps a new set of dark ages are coming at a breakneck pace.

I agree completely. As a Technologist and advisor to the Oil and Gas Insustry for 25+ years it is very frustrating to see the obtuse comments made by the media. This is an incident on the order of magnitude of a volcano caused by a combination of factors rooted in poor and flawed engineering design that provides too little of a safety factor. Unfortunately, by and large we have produced two generations of citizenry that do not have even the basic tools to understand what this means and the complexity in dealing with it, so they make inane kneejerk suggestions such as blowing up the blow-out with a nuclear warhead which would only create a crater with uncontrolled radioactive discharge.
The ignorance of the masses will be the downfall of the democratic experiment we know as the United States of America.

It is interesting to note that the topics you suggest the press should cover are topics with no emotion! Since the press is all about soliciting a response to drive ratings and advertisers, why should they present something that contains no emotion? And so we notice how pervasive the dumbing of America is with each passing crisis...

I have been extremely disappointed in the "fluffy" manner in which the news media has reported on this massive engineering disaster, and the various efforts to cap the leak.
However, the MTV movie awards are getting in-depth coverage by most news agencies..

savroD: That's exactly what our parent's generation said!

I was going to link this wonderful article on facebook, but instead of the headline and first para about popular scientific ignorance and the BP disaster , the description comes up of the blog purpose: chip design, which is of no interest to my friend group.

Part of the reason that the press has been focusing on BP's hand wringing is that it is what the BP exec's have been doing, instead of putting the word out about how bad the thing is, as well as the contributions of all of their employees and contractors. They have been mostly concerned publicly about deflecting the blame.

Nice job Ron; however, when you have a country where over 50% of the population doesn't believe in evolution, there is little chance of coming to terms with problemss. Americas solution to every problem is to declare war on it like somehow that is going to rally the foolish. My hope is that the young people straighten out this mess my generation made of this world!