I am currently reading Tom Nichol’s above titled book, and finding it fascinating, enlightening, and even a bit depressing. It’s a great read and I highly recommend it.  To (poorly) summarize his premise: given society’s incredible access to information, often unvetted, usually without context, and frequently just plain wrong, we’re creating an environment where opinion is conflated with fact and everyone feels empowered to speak with authority on the most arcane, complex or nuanced of topics. The book has been attacked as a defense of elitism, but that line of reasoning is the very point of the book! There are people who know more than any of the rest of us do about at least something, and sometimes, many things. To ignore that is to […]