The Optimum Utilization of Knowledge: Making Knowledge Serve Human Betterment

We all have more knowledge than we use; even so, say the editors of this book, ignorance often governs our actions. Society continues to find ways to misuse knowledge-from manipulating information to gain political power to restricting what ideas are explored on university campuses. Thus, when some of the best minds in the country met to focus on the optimum utilization of knowledge, it was not an idle academic inquiry. In these proceedings from that conference, which was sponsored by the Academy of Independent Scholars, the contributors examine several of the key aspects of learning: the importance of knowledge in decision making, the role of our educational system and other systems in producing and disseminating knowledge, and the relationship between knowledge and the physiological, psychological, and cultural bases of the learning process. The misuse of knowledge-or the overuse of ignorance-the authors note, could threaten the existence of the entire planet, if the kind of thinking exemplified by the nuclear arms race prevails.