Bryan Caplan

The trouble with troublesome knowledge

2018-06-16T07:32:11+01:00June 16th, 2018|Featured|

A recent blog post made some interesting assertions about knowledge. In doing so it presented a series of opinions as facts. That is not a criticism - we all have a tendency to do this. But in order to confront the troublesome nature of knowledge we should address these claims head on and to do so I will treat them as if they were factual. Fact claim 1: we can teach children [about the world using a globe] as a set of facts to recall, but it just won’t go in like it does later on – they simply cannot place it [...]

The Case Against Education

2018-03-23T09:00:26+00:00March 17th, 2018|Featured|

I've been reading the economist Bryan Caplan's new book, The Case Against Education with great interest. His is very much a contrarian point of view: that most of the time and effort spent on the project of education is wasted. Cue steep intake of breath. He's not saying time and money spent on an individual's education is a waste, but that the billions of tax dollars spent on educating society is, in large part, misplaced. He compares an individual's education to standing up in a concert; if one or two people stand up then they're guaranteed a better view of the [...]

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