Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking

As doomscrolling, two articles caught my attention that are not confined to the humanities but science and science communication.

“Kids are arriving on college campuses with fewer skills and diminished attention spans. But, rather than challenge students, many colleges are lowering institutional standards to accommodate them.” - NYPOST

“It’s not even an inability to critically think,” Jessica Hooten Wilson, a professor of great books and humanities at Pepperdine University told Fortune. “It’s an inability to read sentences.” - FORTUNE

I spend far too much time trying to write carefully, checking my assumptions, interrogating my biases, and grounding claims in evidence by providing references. Clearly a mistake.

Foolishly, I keep drinking the Kool-Aid that platforms like Substack care about good writing and honest inquiry. I should know better. The smarter move is to abandon nuance entirely. I should pivot to sub-one-minute video clips, layer in pretty pictures, memes, idioms, and sharpened pejoratives. Scientific substance and carefully read and researched references should be optional when confidence is mandatory.

Transparency is inefficient. Accountability slows momentum. Openness invites questions. Questions and critical thinking are bad for engagement. I need to heed advice, and dumb it down. What works is fear, paired with doubt and carefully curated uncertainty. Clearly, as a toxicologist, I should drone more about petroleum-based, artificial, synthetic chemicals and fail to use poison, profit, and industry often enough to drive engagement.

Consensus must be treated as suspect. Uniformity in labeling and toxicological safety assessment is pure evil especially when a single non-reproducible, non-transparent, non-guideline study can be elevated to reveal harms that everyone else has deliberately ignored. Harmonization isn’t rigor; it’s evidence of collusion. Agreement across agencies isn’t reassurance; it’s proof that the questions were never allowed to be asked.

Scientific disagreement is not a feature of inquiry but clear evidence of corruption. Complexity is best flattened into industry-led conspiracies, delivered in second-long sound bites and repeated until dissent sounds deviant.

Integrity doesn’t scale. Honesty doesn’t go viral. Time to stop thinking—and start performing !

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Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. Fewer skills, diminished attention spans, lower standards, and a declining ability to think critically, or even read complete sentences. Congratulations if you made it this far of if you found this post at all?