Nearly 7,000 people packed the Grand Garden Arena during IBM's Pulse 2011 celebration in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand to hear DEKA Research and Development Founder Dean Kamen extol the importance of integrating science and technology into the United States’ educational system.Kamen, whose love of science and technology is evident, talked to the crowd about the work of his foundation, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) science and technology to students across the country.
He argued the problem with the way the United States is not that there isn't enough supply --good teachers and textbooks -- but that there’s a lack of demand. Kamen said the lack of demand is the result of where society puts its emphasis.
"We just watched three hours of people in the entertainment industry paying tribute to themselves," Kamen said. "That's where we've put the emphasis in this society. We have to change that."
I wonder what Kamen thinks about the over-emphasis on religion we see in much of the U.S.
Of course, the world's dumbasses relate to sports, entertainment and religion because they can understand them more easily than they can understand mathematics, science and engineering. You don't have to postulate philosophical reasons for the preference, the way some Objectivists do; I suspect Kamen glimpses part of the truth with his cultural conjecture, but then culture reflects a population's intelligence and ability to engage in abstract thinking. Suppose we could raise everyone's IQ by ten points. Because the benefits of the IQ boost would fall disproportionately on the world's dullards by lifting a lot of them above some critical threshold so that they started to make better choices in life, that might result in a society more to Kamen's liking - and to mine.
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