Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Jennifer
And then I wonder aloud if they could tell me what the Second Law of Thermodynamics is. Of course they can't. But they don't seem to think that their lack of knowledge of one of the most simple, basic ideas in science is anything to worry about, and will quite happily admit to not knowing something scientific of a level so basic that it's pretty much equivalent to knowing the difference between 'there', 'their' and 'they're'.
|
Certainly there is a lot of snobism in the area of knowledge. However, it is true that there are things which are of greater common knowledge than others and thus the absence of that knowledge is more shocking.
If the young man had not heard of Lord Nelson, say, I wouldn't have been surprised. However, Stalin was such a monumental historcal figure only a short while ago that I was surprised that he had 0 idea who he was, where he was from, or what he did.