Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World
Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World
THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD must be eliminated because the children are intellectually inferior. The book, which received surprisingly respectful attention from the media, concludes that there is an irreducible hereditary gap between blacks and whites - about 10 or 15 points on IQ tests. In a review, the psychologist Leon J. Kamin concludes that '[t]he authors repeatedly fail to distinguish between correlation and causation' - one of the fallacies of our baloney detection kit. The National Center for Family Literacy, based in Louisville, Kentucky, has been implementing programmes aimed at lowincome families to teach both children and their parents to read. It works like this: the child, 3 to 4 years old, attends school three days a week along with a parent, or possibly a grandparent or guardian. While the grown-up spends the morning learning basic academic skills, the child is in a preschool class. Parent and child meet for lunch and then 'learn how to learn together' for the rest of the afternoon. A follow-up study of fourteen such programmes in three states revealed: (1) although all of the children had been designated as being at risk for school failure as pre-schoolers, only ten per cent were still rated at risk by their current elementary school teachers. (2) More than 90 per cent were considered by their current elementary school teachers as motivated to learn. (3) Not one of the children had to repeat any grade in elementary school. The growth of the parents was no less dramatic. When asked to describe how their lives had changed as a result of the family literacy programme, typical responses described improved selfconfidence (nearly every participant) and self-control, passing high-school equivalency exams, admission to college, new jobs, and much better relations with their children. The children are described as more attentive to parents, eager to learn and - in some cases for the first time - hopeful about the future. Such programmes could also be used in later grades for teaching mathematics, science and much else. Tyrants and autocrats have always understood that literacy, learning, books and newspapers are potentially dangerous. They 340
The Path to Freedom can put independent and even rebellious ideas in the heads of their subjects. The British Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia wrote in 1671: I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have [them] these [next] hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both! But the American colonists, understanding where liberty lies, would have none of this. In its early years, the United States boasted one of the highest - perhaps the highest - literacy rates in the world. (Of course, slaves and women didn't count in those days.) As early as 1635, there had been public schools in Massachusetts, and by 1647 compulsory education in all townships there of more than fifty 'households'. By the next century and a half, educational democracy had spread all over the country. Political theorists came from other countries to witness this national wonder: vast numbers of ordinary working people who could read and write. The American devotion to education for all propelled discovery and invention, a vigorous democratic process, and an upward mobility that pumped the nation's economic vitality. Today, the United States is not the world leader in literacy. Many of those judged literate are unable to read and understand very simple material - much less a sixth-grade textbook, an instruction manual, a bus schedule, a mortgage statement, or a ballot initiative. And the sixth-grade textbooks of today are much less challenging than those of a few decades ago, while the literacy requirements at the workplace have become more demanding than ever before. The gears of poverty, ignorance, hopelessness and low selfesteem mesh to create a kind of perpetual failure machine that grinds down dreams from generation to generation. We all bear the cost of keeping it running. Illiteracy is its linchpin. Even if we hardened our hearts to the shame and misery experienced by the victims, the cost of illiteracy to everyone else is 341
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The Path to Freedom<br />
can put independent and even rebellious ideas in the heads of<br />
their subjects. The British Royal Governor of the Colony of<br />
Virginia wrote in 1671:<br />
I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope<br />
we shall not have [them] these [next] hundred years; for<br />
learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into<br />
the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against<br />
the best government. God keep us from both!<br />
But the American colonists, understanding where liberty lies,<br />
would have none of this.<br />
In its early years, the United States boasted one of the highest -<br />
perhaps the highest - literacy rates in the world. (Of course, slaves<br />
and women didn't count in those days.) As early as 1635, there<br />
had been public schools in Massachusetts, and by 1647 compulsory<br />
education in all townships there of more than fifty 'households'.<br />
By the next century and a half, educational democracy had<br />
spread all over the country. Political theorists came from other<br />
countries to witness this national wonder: vast numbers of ordinary<br />
working people who could read and write. The American<br />
devotion to education for all propelled discovery and invention, a<br />
vigorous democratic process, and an upward mobility that<br />
pumped the nation's economic vitality.<br />
Today, the United States is not the world leader in literacy. Many<br />
of those judged literate are unable to read and understand very<br />
simple material - much less a sixth-grade textbook, an instruction<br />
manual, a bus schedule, a mortgage statement, or a ballot initiative.<br />
And the sixth-grade textbooks of today are much less challenging<br />
than those of a few decades ago, while the literacy requirements at<br />
the workplace have become more demanding than ever before.<br />
The gears of poverty, ignorance, hopelessness and low selfesteem<br />
mesh to create a kind of perpetual failure machine that<br />
grinds down dreams from generation to generation. We all bear<br />
the cost of keeping it running. Illiteracy is its linchpin.<br />
Even if we hardened our hearts to the shame and misery<br />
experienced by the victims, the cost of illiteracy to everyone else is<br />
341
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