[amackera]

I don't think that the author was implying the existence of a vast conspiracy to keep people dumb; rather, the author was suggesting that society is operating in a manner which he believes is suboptimal.

Let's say memorisation is taught in lieu of problem solving for the reasons you stated, then consequently the people who are good at memorisation become thought of as smart, since they do well academically. This, in turn, influences the education system to focus more on memorisation (though, of course, this is all hypothetical).

[amalcon]

Interestingly, "smart" is only equated with memorization in artificial situations (like academics and trivia shows). Case in point: if you ask people who's presently the smartest person in America, they might say the jeopardy guy (I actually suspect a lot of them would say Hawking). If you ask who's the smartest person in American history, the overwhelming response will probably be Einstein (except a few who will say Hawking, or -- very rarely -- Tesla). Einstein was a notorious problem-solver. Certainly, if you asked someone if they'd prefer their child to grow up to be like Einstein or like the Jeopardy guy, they'd probably pick Einstein.

Likewise, I don't think the author was implying any sort of conspiracy. I probably used the wrong word. I should have said that there's no real effort on anyone's part to promote memorization over problem-solving. Memorization is more prominent in these artificial situations because it's easier to train and test, rather than because people think it's superior.

[brutimus]

FYI: Hawking is British and teaches at University of Cambridge in England. :-)

[amalcon]

Right. Silly me. s/U.S./world/g, or go back in time 30 years or so and use Feynman.