The other day I happened to catch a few minutes of the movie Inherit the Wind  [the 1960 Spencer Tracy version], a film which is essentially a fictionalized version of the Scopes trial of 1925, where a Tennessee public school teacher was convicted of  teaching of evolution in the public schools, in violation of then state law. In the film and in the actual trial, the presiding judge forbid the defendant’s attorney from calling witnesses from the scientific community on the grounds that the science was not relevant to the charge, because the question was not about whether the law was accurate, but whether the defendant had violated that law.  Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 [equivalent to roughly $1,250 today], but the verdict was later overturned on appeal by a technicality, and Scopes was never re-tried.  In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled that prohibition of teaching evolution was unconstitutional because it represented the favoring of one religious view over others [a fact seemingly overlooked or forgotten in the forty years following].

What struck me, however, about both the trial and the film was the underlying problem faced by the scientific community whenever a scientific theory, factual finding, or discovery conflicts with popular or religious beliefs.  All too often, the popular reaction is a variation on “shoot the messenger” who bears bad or unpleasant news.  The plain fact, which tends to be overlooked, is that a significant proportion, if not an overwhelming majority, of deeply religious individuals who identify themselves as Christians do not trust scientists, or indeed, anyone who does not share their beliefs.

This viewpoint is certainly not limited to Christians, and there are more than a few scientists who do not trust the ability of deeply believing Christians to guide public policy, especially in regard to science and education.  The radical factions of Islam are unlikely to trust western secularists on much of anything, and all stripes of militants are going to be skeptical of those who do not share their views of how the world should be.

In essence, one person’s “truth” can all too often be another’s heresy, even when there is overwhelming factual evidence of that truth.  That overwhelming factual evidence can be denied is most easily seen in dealing with hard science [regardless of belief, there is far too much evidence of the development of the universe to allow any credibility to the idea that the earth and the cosmos were created in 4004 B.C.], but the problem exists in all areas of human endeavor. 

Simply put… how do we know whether what someone says is accurate or truthful?  Generally speaking, we weigh what is said against what we know and believe, but how do we know whether what we know and believe is accurate?

The “traditional” answer to that question was the basis for so-called liberal education, where an individual studied a wide range of subjects, questioning and experimenting with facts and ideas and obtaining a broader range of knowledge and perspective.  Unfortunately, the increasing complexity and technological basis of modern civilization has resulted in a growing class of individuals who are highly educated in narrower and narrower fields of knowledge, and who believe that they are “knowledgeable” in areas well beyond their education and experience.  Some indeed are.  Most aren’t.

Nonetheless, the problems remain.  How can society educate its citizens so that they can distinguish more accurately between what actually is and was and what they wish to believe that cannot be supported by facts, observation, and verifiable technology and science?  And how should society deal with those who wish society’s rules to be based upon beliefs that  can be factually shown to be false or inaccurate?

The day before yesterday or thereabouts, Borders Books announced bankruptcy and the closure of more than 200 superstores, following its announcement last month that it had deferred payments to its creditors, including the monies it owes to my publisher. Yesterday, one of the largest Australian bookselling chains announced bankruptcy.  Last week, the Canadian distributor for my books [and all those titles released by Macmillan and its subsidiaries] announced bankruptcy and immediate shut-down.  And now, Walmart has removed the already small F&SF section from at least some [if not all] of its stores. The circulation numbers of print versions of F&SF magazines are generally down once again, as are the paperback book sales. On top of that readers are complaining to me that they either can’t get ebook versions of my work outside the USA… or that there are only a few titles available.

Needless to say, this is a worrying time for authors, especially new authors or those whose recent sales numbers are considered “borderline” by their publishers.

What tends to be forgotten in all these stories and depressing financials and figures is that, at least in the United States, the past fifty years have been either a golden age in publishing and writing [that’s if you’re an optimist] or a prolonged “bubble” [if you’re a pessimist].  Prior to a century ago, only a few handfuls of writers could make a living strictly from their writing. Even some thirty years ago, Isaac Asimov calculated that there were less than 500 U.S. writers making a living wage in speculative fiction, and most were barely scraping by. Over the past two decades, I’d wager that there well might have been ten times that number.

Will that level of “prosperity” continue? 

I hope so… but I’d have to say that I have my doubts… for a number of reasons.  First, despite fluctuations on a year by year basis, surveys indicate that the number of young people reading books continues, overall, to decline. Second, the number and geographic range of book sales outlets is also declining, and this will be accelerated if Borders Books fails, which, unhappily, is looking more and more likely despite the attempt to remain in business through bankruptcy restructuring.  Third, the rate of high-level functional literacy is also declining.  Fourth, the range and scope of other entertainment options, particularly visually-video-oriented and interactive ones, is increasing.  And fifth, the amount of uninterrupted time free for reading is also declining.

Now… I’m not saying that reading or books will vanish, but unless these trends reverse dramatically, book readership will continue to decline markedly, and eventually, so will book sales, more than the annual declines over the past two years.  Some of this longer-term decline will be masked when more and more baby-boomers retire, because they will have more time to read, and most likely will, but as they die off, they’re not likely to be replaced, and book sales will decline more significantly.

So… for those young writers who are selling well now… I’d recommending saving a lot more than you are at present because the good times never last forever.

I was struck by the observation made by two comments on my last blog, the point that, in the quest for efficiency – and higher profits in the case of corporations – both government and industry are effectively destroying redundancy in industry and infrastructure and in the production of goods and services.  That lack of redundancy, inventory, or reserves results in higher costs, often the destruction of businesses, and unsafe or dangerous conditions for millions of people.

Airlines, for example, strive to fill every seat on the plane and have virtually no back-up aircraft available – and even if they do, airports have no more landing/take-off slots. So… when bad weather or other delays occur, thousands upon thousands of passengers may literally have to wait days or weeks to make a business trip or return home.  Last summer a crane knocked over one power pole here in Cedar City.  One pole on a residential street, and a quarter of the town was without power for the entire day. Again, here in Cedar City, one of the pumps providing water to the town failed, and it took two weeks to get and install a replacement pump – and for two weeks severe water restrictions were in place because the city didn’t have a replacement pump. 

One of the reasons for the financial melt-down of several years ago was another lack of redundancy, if you will – the lack of capital reserves on the part of banks, investment banks, and brokerage firms.  To be “efficient” and squeeze every possible drop of profit from their investments, they leveraged themselves to the hilt… and they had no reserves left when large parts of their portfolios went sour.

State governments are guilty of the same sort of short-term thinking.  They cut taxes or spend more funds when tax revenues are good, never setting aside reserves, and then have to cut services or raise taxes at the very time when such cuts are not only the most painful, but when such cuts have a multiplier effect that makes the economy even worse.

All this so-called efficiency is nothing of the sort.  What the quest for efficiency has become is an on-going pressure to get more work out of fewer people and more profit out of less investment, all of which results in the inability to deal adequately with the inevitable but unpredictable disasters that will always occur, whether caused by weather, human error, or economic collapses of one sort or another.

There’s a point where the pursuit of efficiency becomes, as the old saying goes, “penny wise and pound foolish,” and most businesses and governments passed that point long ago.  What’s even sadder is that those who guide both don’t have either the wisdom or the guts to say, “Enough is enough.”

Last week the winter resort community of Brian Head [Utah] lost electric power for 19 hours during a bitter winter storm.  Because the outage was caused late in the day by a downed power line and insulators broken by subzero temperatures, blinding snow, and high winds in a mountain area not accessible except by foot or snowcat in the winter, it was more than twelve hours before power crews could even locate and then reach the site.  This loss of power caused an estimated $30 million worth of damage to more than 200 condominiums and resort homes from frozen and burst pipes.

There are, of course, a few questions as to why this happened.  How could so much damage occur in such a short time?  After all, I live some thirty miles away, as the crow flies, from Brian Head, and the temperatures here weren’t that much colder. In fact, we turn the heat down from 65 degrees to 50 at night, and the house didn’t even cool fifteen degrees that night.  But then, we have a well-insulated house, and the starting temperature was 65 degrees.  The majority of the dwellings damaged in Brian Head were rental units, many of which were unoccupied at the time, and the baseline heating level was probably around 50 degrees. Second, those units were not all that well insulated and depended on continuous power in the winter.

Even so, what happened in Brian Head illustrates just how dependent how most of us in the United States are on the continuous flow of power, water, and other infrastructure services.  We’re also often ill-equipped to deal with massive disruptions, as witness what happened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  Our daughter and her husband in Houston, not even in the direct path of the Hurricane, were without power for nearly a month because the power crews could not get to their street because the number of downed trees overwhelmed their capabilities.

Yet neither the majority of Americans – or U.S. politicians – seem to recognize either our degree of dependence on our infrastructure or its deteriorating state.  The electric grid is outdated and held together with creative fixes… and hope.  Tens of thousands of bridges are deteriorating.  The water system serving New York City is over a century old and leaks millions of gallons a day.  The list goes on and on… and only when there’s an emergency – or a disaster – does it seem like either businesses or government even take notice.

They’re all like the rental property owners in Brian Head – build it and operate it as cheaply as possible, regardless of the possible damages and costs if something goes wrong – just another example of short-term thinking on the part of both the public and the private sector.

The headline read “Useless Degrees?”, and the newspaper story went on to tell about a state lawmaker who was upset about the fact that too many students, especially here in Utah, obtained degrees in areas of study for which there were either no careers or very few jobs for the number of students with academic degrees in those fields.

This sort of questioning raises a fundamental question about both the value of an undergraduate collegiate degree and the purpose of such a degree.  Is the principal purpose of an undergraduate degree to provide what amounts to vocational training or is it to teach the student how to think?

Immediately, of course, the response from most people would be:  “Why not both?”

The problem with the “both” answer is that learning “how” is often very different from learning how to ask “why.”  Asking why often requires challenging the status quo, and accepted beliefs, as well as examining what lies behind what created society, or a certain discipline, in its present form.  The original concept of the university was based on educating a comparatively small percentage of the population to question and to master a limited number of high-level skills, such as law and medicine, and later engineering. Other skills were learned on the job through what amounted to apprenticeship.  Today, however, many occupations require young people to have a much higher degree of knowledge and skill and some form of formal education in order even to be considered for employment. Part of this is because society has become more mobile and businesses are often reluctant to spend the money and time to train people in order for them to master skills and then leave and use those skills elsewhere

The problem that colleges and universities face is that, first, many are not equipped to operate as high-level vocational schools, nor to determine which students belong in what field of study, and even when they can, societal expectations essentially restrict their ability to determine which students take which courses.  Second, not all students are suited to all disciplines, and very few know their strengths and limitations.  Third, our society is changing rapidly enough that any “vocational” education provided to a student will be time-limited because the field itself will either change drastically over the course of a student’s later life or may even vanish.  This is one reason why many educators fight the idea of “vocational” education and emphasize trying to teach students to think. Another reason is simply that universities shouldn’t play occupational “god” and insist they know what a student should study, although it’s fair to say that they are equipped to determine, by allowing a student to try a course and fail, what a student should not study.  But, of course, giving students such a choice is expensive, both for the student and the institution.

As many of you know, my wife is a college professor, and I’ve taught at the collegiate level.  So it’s likely that I’m apt to see matters in a different light from that politician who wants more students to obtain degrees in math, sciences, health care, and computer-related fields.

From a student’s point of view, there’s one critical question that should drive a choice of a collegiate major or field of study:  Does the student have the aptitude for that field?  I’m not talking so much about preparation as the raw capability.  No matter how great the desire, in some fields, without certain basic aptitudes, a student will not succeed. I think it’s more than fair to say that, although I’m fairly bright, I’d never succeed as a music major.  I can’t tell whether I’m on pitch/key, whether I’m singing or playing an instrument.  Nor do I have any sense of rhythm.  It doesn’t matter how bright I am.  Without those capabilities, I’d fail at music.  Other students and relatives I’ve known simply have limited mathematical capabilities. Others didn’t develop linguistic skills early enough in life, and therefore will never succeed in areas requiring written skills.

Yet our collegiate system encourages students to follow what they think their “passion” may be, regardless of what their abilities may be.  This often results in a student taking far more courses than required to get a degree… and higher costs at state-supported schools… and law-makers wanting to mandate restrictions or higher costs.

Even if colleges become what amount to high-level vocational institutions – which I think would be a disaster for the United States – such a change wouldn’t address the problem of students not knowing what their capabilities and desires are.  The capability problem could be addressed by a secondary school system that demanded more rigor and course content, and less teaching to the tests, but less teaching to the tests would result in less certain assessment, etc., all of which points out the basic problem:  Education is being labeled as the cure for everything, and it’s not.  Education in itself cannot instill drive or ambition.  Nor can it provide discipline or self-discipline, not without the support of parents and community.  Nor can it provide the desire to learn, only the opportunity.

For all these reasons, among many others, while education is vital to society, what kind of education is best depends on the student, and no one kind of education, with a simple degree path of the sort that everyone from lawmakers to parents seem to be demanding, will suffice.  One size never did fit all, and neither will a simple fix, even one backed by law, achieve any real solution.