Comment by Pinko Commie on February 16, 2010 at 5:18pm

There's a college in my state that advertises specifically to a certain god fearing, Beck loving crowd. I wish I could find the advert, but it basically said 'give your child en education without the radical liberal influence!' They were the kind of 'college' that had fries-with-that degrees I had never heard of that were heavily theologically focused. I remember thinking- "Sheesh. Talk about taking advantage of stupid people..."

Comment by Shine on February 16, 2010 at 8:27pm

This sort of anti-academic shtick angers me so much that I find it hard to form coherent sentences to express my disdain. But I lost a debate in ethics class today because I let anger get the best of me, so I should probably work on the ability to be coherent despite extreme irritation. ;)

So the video is positing two separate arguments: first, that the presence of liberal professors turns college graduates into liberals. Second, that college graduates are illiterate in civic matters.

Where to even begin... First, the study seems to specifically regard social liberalism, yet FoxNews portrays it as the full political label of liberalism. Regardless, there is absolutely no causal basis established for the theory that liberal professors spawn liberal graduates. At best, this is a tenuous correlation. The argument could just as easily be staked that an increased knowledge of history, human psychology, and sociology can lead to a more liberal stance on social issues.

But on to the purported civic ineptitude of these newly liberal grads. So one third of college graduates do not know if the constitution allows for the establishment of a national religion. This statement is completely meaningless if not compared to the rate of non-college graduates who do not know the answer to this question; you can't claim that college "dumbs kids down" if there is no comparison with a control group. What if two thirds of non-grads do not know the answer? Wouldn't that actually make the one third figure indicate that college improves civic literacy?

Of course, FoxNews just wants to piggyback the college grad civil literacy figures onto the college-makes-you-liberal theory, thereby extending the unestablished causality to include this supposed lack of civic knowledge. Luckily, since the program caters to an uneducated populace, none of their viewers will notice the logical transgressions.

Anyone know a link to the actual study? In typical FoxNews fashion, it doesn't sound like they mention where to find it.

Comment by Martin Pribble on February 17, 2010 at 1:03am

Controlled, literate and succint there Shine. I too find it difficult to keep a clear head in the presence of such blatant fact bending. Only with a clear mind can we effectively argue against these chumps.

Comment by Shine on February 18, 2010 at 8:00am

Thanks, Martin. :)

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