Comments on: books that make you dumb

By: Meg

Meg — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:03:46 +0000

A “study”? That’s like calling what my college pals and I did involving fire crackers and papier mache “science experiments.” People are taking this waaaay too seriously.

By: Kevin Moore

Kevin Moore — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:22:38 +0000

The first thing I notice about many of these titles is that they are standard entries on required reading lists for high school, community college and introductory literature courses at four-year colleges and universities. “The Color Purple” appears at the low end not because it makes anyone “dumb” but because it is frequently on ENG 101 or WR 121 reading lists; folks with lower SAT scores would have had a greater chance of encountering this text than, say, “Lolita.”

I think it is sad the way this study was framed. The correlation could be informative about literature education if more rigorous research methods were deployed. Instead it simply goes toward stigmatizing the reading preferences of low scorers on standardized tests that more often than not favor students from privileged backgrounds and/or with greater access to print resources. In other words, it reinforces negative stereotypes about the poor and minorities.

By: Crooked Timber » » “Atlas Shrugged” Kicks the Ass of “Fight Club”

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:24:09 +0000

[...] plucked from this, like over-ripe and low-hanging fruit. Verily I say unto you, have a look. (via Librarian.net) posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 3:23 pm Post a [...]

By: Rajesh

Rajesh — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:44:12 +0000

Marianaria… May be Holy Bible is the “holy” editions of the Bible with some additional chapters to improve the holiness factor. It seems to have worked.

By: Marianaria Bibliotecaria

Marianaria Bibliotecaria — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:55:54 +0000

The Holy Bible and the Bible would seem to be the same title, but they have two positions in the chart.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:46:32 +0000

I saw this yesterday, and looked at it for about 3 seconds before determining that in addition to being a meaningless correlation, the format looks lame.

I also can’t figure out why the ranges for some books are so large, it seems like they should be points or uniform ranges.

By: jam

jam — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:01:07 +0000

hmmm… do SAT scores measure anything other than ones ability to take SAT tests?

that said, reading Ayn Rand did make me dumber, very very dumber – that part of my brain still hurts actually

By: Books that make you dumb « arbofo

Books that make you dumb « arbofo — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:55:45 +0000

[...] January 26, 2008 at 3:53 pm (books, for fun) (books, colleges, data mining, facebook, fun, nerd, SAT, scores, tests) S. is going to love this. This guy, Virgil, who aspires to “become the #1 hit on Google for the query ‘ virgil ‘, has data-mined Facebook to create Booksthatmakeyoudumb. Basically, he and a friend manually collected schools’ top-ten lists for books, and charted them by their average SAT and ACT scores. There are some obvious flaws here, but as Virgil tells you, that’s totally besides the point. [librarian.net] [...]