So she says, evidently, in her newest book (pity the pulp). The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes a nice rejoinder that makes it quite clear that, according to a 2006 survey, she's incorrect (which ought to be no surprise, given her track record).
Unfortunately, lots of her true-believers read her malarkey, and accept it as gospel-truth. That's a shame, because she's further entrenching a stereotype that has contributed so much to the anti-intellectualism - that disdain for those horrid "elites" - that the Becks/Limbaughs/Hannitys of the country have labored so diligently to entrench in the American mind-set. By dint of the tremendous educational opportunities that the "American way of life" has provided to so many of its young people, the United States possesses a wonderful - and vital - resource: thousands of highly educated, bright, dedicated educators and researchers, many of them of relatively humble origins and background, eager to contribute to the welfare of their fellow citizens by sharing their expertise or applying it to solving looming problems (like the effects of global warming) that will affect Americans and people across the planet.
But the Palins of the country dismiss them as godless elites, and encourage their fellow Americans to do so as well.
And Palin's message as well? Because academics are untrustworthy, academic and scientific expertise is similarly worthless, untrustworthy - and when possessed by individuals who might not share her triumphalist Christian version of monotheism, perhaps un-American, even a tool for the working of evil.
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