>What I hope is that the parallel with the Greeks does not hold, and that we maintain literacy to the extent that we preserve each individual’s ability to evaluate any information, no matter the source. If we lose that capacity to think about what is true, we will replace our culture with another that has the potential to destroy us.
I see that the author has written nearly hundreds of articles on comprehension and dyslexia, but seems to believe that the average person has not only the ability but predilection to be critical of sources?
Isn't the lack of this ability in the average person exactly the source of the problem with textbooks, wikipedia, and now LLMs? The "Well, I read {insert falsehood" phenomenon? In that each contains confident claims of demonstable falsehoods that are then parrotted by the masses? (Think "science can't explain bumblebees' flight" or "the dark side of the moon is always dark" or "Nasa spent millions on a fancy pen when they could've used a pencil like the russians")
I know, of course, that some (probably over-represented here) population does have and use this faculty, but interacting with the public in general seems to indicate a fairly universal "trust your elders" mindset, even if one's chosen "elders" aren't mainstream.
Your average person has implicitly trusted any author, blogger, teacher, politician, person, or LLM that confirms what they already suspected to be true or fits with their world view without so much as a first critical thought, let alone an entire critical evaluation of the source, and that's been the case for...ever?
>What I hope is that the parallel with the Greeks does not hold, and that we maintain literacy to the extent that we preserve each individual’s ability to evaluate any information, no matter the source. If we lose that capacity to think about what is true, we will replace our culture with another that has the potential to destroy us.
I see that the author has written nearly hundreds of articles on comprehension and dyslexia, but seems to believe that the average person has not only the ability but predilection to be critical of sources?
Isn't the lack of this ability in the average person exactly the source of the problem with textbooks, wikipedia, and now LLMs? The "Well, I read {insert falsehood" phenomenon? In that each contains confident claims of demonstable falsehoods that are then parrotted by the masses? (Think "science can't explain bumblebees' flight" or "the dark side of the moon is always dark" or "Nasa spent millions on a fancy pen when they could've used a pencil like the russians")
I know, of course, that some (probably over-represented here) population does have and use this faculty, but interacting with the public in general seems to indicate a fairly universal "trust your elders" mindset, even if one's chosen "elders" aren't mainstream.
Your average person has implicitly trusted any author, blogger, teacher, politician, person, or LLM that confirms what they already suspected to be true or fits with their world view without so much as a first critical thought, let alone an entire critical evaluation of the source, and that's been the case for...ever?