Timothy thinks and thinks about ways to improve academia so that it begins to deliver the semi-mythic liberal arts education. This is in part a response to criticism of the state of universities and calls for external regulation to overcome what some see as structural factors that inhibit progress and genuine intellectual engagement, and in part a desire to improve individual outcomes independent of concerns about narrowness or indoctrination.

If I don’t want to have a test of a fixed body of knowledge, but I agree that we ought to have benchmarks, what represents the bull’s eye? I figure that if you can identify a successful embodiment of the liberal arts in professional and personal life, and the person who represents that successful standard feels that the content of their education produced ways of thinking about the world that led to that success, you might have a better idea about what kinds of courses and teaching approaches would favor that ultimate goal.

If I had to identify people who most absolutely represent the highest ideals of a liberal arts education, I would start with the hosts of the television show Mythbusters.

If you’re not familiar with the show, the basic premise is that they take a commonly held belief or a commonly repeated cultural trope and try to concretely test its plausibility using some version of the scientific method. This can range from “is it actually easy to shoot fish in a barrel?” to “Could James Bond really have blown up a propane tank with a pistol at 20 yards and escape intact in the movie Casino Royale?”

Read the post for further explanation of how the show supports Tim's thesis, but this quote from Jamie Hyneman, one of the MythBusters hosts, may serve.

You can’t expect to teach someone everything he or she needs to know. A broad foundation of experience allows you to extrapolate things with which you have no direct experience. Specialists are usually in danger of not seeing the forest for the trees. If you acquire both a broad foundation and deep knowledge in a specific thing, you become much more dynamic in that area. If one takes both of these things to extremes, something truly transcendental can happen. In my case, my college education was not specifically useful to me later, but it had an effect on me in fundamental ways that were very major in the long run.

Perhaps. It couldn't hurt, though it doesn't seem to actually help very often. The problem is that there is seldom any desire to be correct, to bust myths. Far more energy goes into making myths, being intentionally deceitful for gain. Nowhere is this more true than in politics (and journalism, same thing really), and unfortunately politics still gets a pass though it is antithetical to the ideals of a liberal arts education. Consider this recent collection of unexamined myths.

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

Are animals a new thing on earth? What percent of the earth was used by animals historically, before humans began cultivating so much land? How much GHGs did they emit. What problems did this cause for the planet? It doesn't take very much thinking to see that the anti-meat lobby is engaging in myth making. None of these assertions make any sense on a planet that was until very recently filled to capacity with animals very like those now disparaged as threats to the environment. The normal state of the planet was for 100% of the surface to be involved in livestock production.

The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed is profound. Agriculture in the United States — much of which now serves the demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Grain is not grown for animal feed. It is grown because it is profitable to do so even when there are no markets since the government subsidizes production. With mountains of unused grain moldering beside already full grain silos the price to consumers was really cheap, so cheap that they developed industries to exploit the grain mountains. They fed it to animals, burned it for fuel or let it rot. Now it is used to make ethanol, which is also subsidized. That's double subsidies.

Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.

Cattle are not removed from their natural environments. They live the vast majority of their lives eating grass, or at least hay, on pastures. They go to the feed lot for their final fattening, after they have their growth, since it takes a long time for animals to get fat on grass. They get sub-therapeutic doses of antibiotics to increase feed conversion efficiency, and so save money, not for disease control. It is human use of antibiotics and antimicrobials that create resistant bacteria. That's why it is found mostly in hospitals.

Those grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes. The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small. But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses at American levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful, it’s way more than enough.

It isn't meat that causes health problems, it is fat from animals who had a high carbohydrate diet (grain) to make them fat. The same meat from leaner animals that have natural fat reduces or even reverses some of the diseases of aging. It's the omega-3 fatty acids we hear so much about. The best, most sustainable, source of these fats is from cattle, especially milk and cheese since they have those fats in a concentrated form. It works the same for people BTW. Eat a lot of grain like the USDA food pyramid suggests and you too can have an unhealthy fat profile that not only makes you look bad, it rots your heart, joints and brain. Diabetes anyone? Alzheimers?

Another suggestion is a return to grazing beef, a very real alternative as long as you accept the psychologically difficult and politically unpopular notion of eating less of it. That’s because grazing could never produce as many cattle as feedlots do.

Nonsense. Grazing already produces the cattle and meat. It just doesn't produce the fat. Countries that don't have surplus grain sell meat to the US now! It's lean and healthful. What would be hard is to produce as much fluid milk since it takes a very rich diet to support heavy lactation. More animals would be needed since each would produce less. It's possible, it's done in some grazing nations, but it takes good management.

Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?

If that was so then the grain mountains would never have been there in the first place. What does "directed instead to feed our fellow human beings" mean? Give it to them? Ship it around the world to hungry people struggling to develop their own local agriculture, and so destroy their means of livelihood? Just how does this addled notion work? What do those simpletons trembling about the horror movies about animal agriculture know about, well, anything? What did their liberal arts education prepare them for? Oh, right, journalism. And politics. No need to think in those professions.

If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

The problem with this is that deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation and heart disease would increase rather than decrease. The grain would still be grown since that's what we know how to do and politicians will buy votes by promising to continue. Some other use, such as fuel, would take up the slack, and people and the environment would be even worse off than they are now. They'd still have all the trouble but less benefit.

Mr. Rosegrant of the food policy research institute says he foresees “a stronger public relations campaign in the reduction of meat consumption — one like that around cigarettes — emphasizing personal health, compassion for animals, and doing good for the poor and the planet.”

This is self-parody. It needs no further criticism.

In fact, Americans are already buying more environmentally friendly products, choosing more sustainably produced meat, eggs and dairy. The number of farmers’ markets has more than doubled in the last 10 years or so, and it has escaped no one’s notice that the organic food market is growing fast. These all represent products that are more expensive but of higher quality.

If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than a routine. It won’t be uncommon, but just as surely as the S.U.V. will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end.

What nonsense. Hybrids aren't of any use. They just make yuppies feel good. What's needed are vehicles that don't have combustion engines. These food fads are the same, something to give meaning to the empty lives of those who have more money than sense.

What's needed is a mythbusters curriculum to improve liberal arts education, or something like that, so that people can begin to think more clearly. How might that look? As Timothy noted:

The show does a very good job of showcasing how they approach testing each of these myths, about the thought-process that goes into designing a test, and about the concrete use of skills and improvisational adaptation to deal with various real-world issues involved in a test. Naturally, it’s skewed towards technical and scientific skills, but the hosts also have to deal with humanistic and social questions ranging from “what are the historical or cultural origins of this particular myth (and thus, what is it that we’re actually trying to test)?” to evaluating what makes for a persuasive or meaningful test of a particular concept.

OK, the illiberally educated author, Mark Bittman, already noted that "the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain". If he took that clue and tried to think clearly how might he proceed? What are chickens and hogs meant to eat, evolved to eat? There sure wasn't much grain around in those days. For that matter, what are people evolved to eat? Same answer. They are all omnivores. Chickens seem to be closely related to dinosaurs. They are little, beaky T-Rex descendants that have been shown at the DNA level to be almost a kissing cousin. Hogs have dietary needs much like people, too close for comfort some think. None of them thrive on grain.

What about the historical and cultural origins question? We know that cattle (and other ruminant) based cultures have been robust and resilient throughout history. This is because ruminants can thrive on foods of no value at all to people, chickens and pigs. They can digest cellulose. It isn't just that they eat grass, it's that they can digest parts of these plants that pass through people, chickens and pigs undigested. They get more out of the grass. You might understand it as being like the grail of biofuels: cellulosic ethanol. The omnivores are stuck on old fashioned, inefficient grain fermentation and can't get any energy out of cellulose. To them it's just fiber, something to help them defecate.

What about the animal breeds? Were cattle always like they are now? How about chickens and pigs? No, they were all bred to thrive in the grain economy.

Cattle, for example, used to be smaller and had higher grazing efficiency. They had larger mouths, shorter legs, bigger stomachs, and shorter spines. Not all of them of course. Different regions bred to suit locality. On the European continent they went for larger size while in the British Isles they went for hardiness and meat quality. In the US west cattle were based on Spanish stock until quite recently. The common cow of the western movie was a scrawny, long horned, short legged and very hardy animal able to thrive in that climate. They came with the Spanish in the 16th century and ran wild for hundreds of years out west. It wasn't until almost the turn of the century that British breeds replaced them. The Hereford and then the Angus took over. In the eastern US the more common cow was the shorthorn, an animal that could pull a plow, give milk, and make meat. They weren't as good at any task as specialists, but for a homesteader they were the perfect answer to all needs. All they needed was grass. One of a homesteader's first tasks in a new site was to cut grass hay for winter forage so that they would have milk and transportation The cattle (oxen) didn't eat grain, they worked to make grain. Using them for meat was a last resort, that's what deer and elk - also ruminants - were for.

The standard modern chicken is a recent invention, a cross between other breeds selected for grain conversion efficiency and carcass traits that customers want. Nothing was taken for granted, even the color of the chicken's skin has been engineered through selection. Their breasts are so large that they can't stand up when full grown. Their legs won't support them and there are balance issues as well. A similar story can be told for hogs but in each case the parent stock is still around and available as "heritage" breeds at great expense for connoisseurs.

Those older breeds of chickens and hogs didn't get much grain either. It was too expensive and scarce to feed to animals in great quantities. Even horses didn't get many oats though they worked hard for their supper. Chickens and hogs - omnivores - got whatever they could catch, supplemented by farm wastes. Chickens ate a lot of bugs. They especially liked to peck apart dung pats to get the grubs and maggots that bred in them. That's high quality protein and fats, and the farmers appreciated the insect control.

All of them served a useful role in the general farm. With skilled management a farmer could rotate crops and pastures, return dung and wastes to the fields, and greatly slow the inevitable degradation that the exceedingly unnatural act of cultivation brings to soils. If they also imported enough fertility from other land in the form of green or brown manures then they could approach a steady state though not quite achieve it. They could steal from one place to heal another.

If the goal is defined and accepted as producing an abundant and healthful diet for humans while doing as little environmental harm as possible then meat will be a substantial part of that diet since that's how nature works. When you grow maize or soya for example, the majority of what is produced is not grain, it's leaves and stems. In nature a bird, hog or human may peck some seeds but ruminants will eat the whole plant - grain, leaves stems and all. Nature makes a lot more leaves and stems than it does seeds, even in these domesticated varieties of grain plants we've grown since the green revolution. Even better in some ways, the ruminants will return 90% of that to the soil in a more completely broken down form so that the next generation of plants have food too. Full circle.

The myth that livestock production is a problem is busted. The truth is that grain production is a problem and government intervention to increase grain production skewed markets so much that the livestock industry was harmed. Fix the grain problem and in time the damage to the livestock industry will mostly correct itself.

It will never fully recover since the past did happen and the industry would be returning toward normal from the other direction. It will never be as good as it would have been had the grain disaster never happened. This is a useful lesson, a truth that deserves attention independent of the grain issue. When we blithely advocate nonsensical policies such as grain subsidies it is worth a moment's reflection that such harms can never be fully reversed. Measure twice, cut once.