Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search

Just a heads-up about an interesting debate about to start. My old friend Tom Panelas, from Britannica, wrote to alert me about a discussion Michael Gorman is initiating on the Britannica blogspace.

Tom quotes, Michael’s post:

“The life of the mind in the age of Web 2.0 suffers from an increase in credulity and an associated flight from expertise. Bloggers are called ‘citizen journalists’; alternatives to Western medicine are increasingly popular . . . millions of Americans are believers in Biblical inerrancy . . . and scientific truths on such matters as medical research, accepted by all mainstream scientists, are rejected by substantial numbers of citizens and many in politics.”

And he promises:

Strong stuff, and there’s plenty more where that came from. Gorman will have a series of six posts over three weeks as the lead blogger in a forum that will involve some very interesting people.There will be several bloggers on hand to defend the new Internet trends and register opposing views, as well as some who will agree with Gorman and others still whose views won’t fall neatly on one side or the other. We expect pithy, high-quality posts from Nicholas Carr, danah boyd, Clay Shirky, Sven Birkerts, Andrew Keen, Dan Gillmor, Matthew Battle, Robert McHenry, Thomas Mann (L of C, not the novelist) and Gregory McNamee.

It should be a combative but civil and highly intelligent discussion, a debate on the future of culture, education, and intellectual life involving people who, though they may disagree, seldom talk to one another. This time they will.

I am off to do a 2.0 inservice. I’ll get back to reading and thinking and commenting  a bit later.