It's not Red vs. Blue Anymore. . .

[Darth Wong]

That's similar to the point I made in an earlier post about the dubious value of "high culture" in improving critical thinking skills.

Unfortunately, I think a strong case can be made that highly educated liberal-arts types often have the same unthinking tribalistic decision-making methodology as semi-literate anti-intellectuals; it's just that they parrot the opinions of a different tribe. Mind you, since the tribe's collective knowledge level is higher, it might be argued that its opinions are superior, but it's still no substitute for critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking skills are simply not a priority to teach to people, and why should they be? Politicians and commercial marketers have no desire to see people improve their critical thinking skills, because they rely on peoples' poor critical thinking skills to sell their policies and products.

[Mayabird]

What data supports the claim that 42 million Americans cannot read?

A 14% illiteracy rate (your link - among adults presumably) only comes to 28 million illiterate Americans. Assuming the writer used the same data as you did, he's making a better argument for his own mathematical inadequacies than he is for American illiteracy. (14% x 200m adults = 28 million; 14% x 300 million Americans = 42 million.

While this guy is making some credible arguments, overall he gives the impression of being a massive douchebag who can't do basic math.

I can see 42 million Americans being functionally illiterate, meaning they know enough to sign their names or read some labels, but are unable to comprehend the wording of a contract, write a halfway correct sentence (case in point: that idiot from Georgia (in the U.S.) who posted that question about Russians invading Georgia to Yahoo Questions), or do a basic math problem (multiplying, fractions, things like that - if you're wondering, I've seen definitions of functional literacy including inability to do math). Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers were higher.

[Big Phil]

What data supports the claim that 42 million Americans cannot read?

A 14% illiteracy rate (your link - among adults presumably) only comes to 28 million illiterate Americans. Assuming the writer used the same data as you did, he's making a better argument for his own mathematical inadequacies than he is for American illiteracy. (14% x 200m adults = 28 million; 14% x 300 million Americans = 42 million.

While this guy is making some credible arguments, overall he gives the impression of being a massive douchebag who can't do basic math.

I can see 42 million Americans being functionally illiterate, meaning they know enough to sign their names or read some labels, but are unable to comprehend the wording of a contract, write a halfway correct sentence (case in point: that idiot from Georgia (in the U.S.) who posted that question about Russians invading Georgia to Yahoo Questions), or do a basic math problem (multiplying, fractions, things like that - if you're wondering, I've seen definitions of functional literacy including inability to do math). Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers were higher.

Sure, that argument might make sense if it were backed by any data, but the douchebag writer said "There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation's population is illiterate or barely literate." 92 million Americans are illiterate or barely literate? Well, if my one year old son is included in that calculation, then it's easy to inflate the numbers of illiterate Americans, but dillweed is claiming 40% of American adults are illiterate or barely literate. Honestly, that's douchebaggery of the highest level.

[Mayabird]

I admit I didn't look it up before because I figured the actual numbers would hurt a lot more, but I finally went and did it.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the actual number of functional illiterates in the U.S. comes out to about 30 million (Listed as "Below Basic: no more than the most simple and concrete literacy skills"). So yeah, the guy's wrong. (Insert joke about functional illiteracy in math here.)

[Big Phil]

I admit I didn't look it up before because I figured the actual numbers would hurt a lot more, but I finally went and did it.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the actual number of functional illiterates in the U.S. comes out to about 30 million (Listed as "Below Basic: no more than the most simple and concrete literacy skills"). So yeah, the guy's wrong. (Insert joke about functional illiteracy in math here.)

And that number just about correlates with the number of Americans without a high school diploma (~33 million as of 2007, according to the US Census Bureau).

Data can be found here: http://www.census.gov/population/www/so ... s2007.html