Is it really the professors?

So Adam has the opinion (via Dennis) that liberal professors and universities go a long way towards creating and perpetuating a lot of the really silly misconceptions that have so damaged modern society (for a list of these, either ask Adam or listen to the Dennis Prager show. Some people would hold that the two activities amount to the same thing sometimes).

Right now I work as a writing fellow for a Sociology of Gender class; I teach the sociology students how to write effectively. Having read several of their papers and talked extensively with the professor that teaches the class, I've come to two conclusions. First, there are a whole lot of silly misconceptions among sociology students, and perhaps there is a big one in the sociology field (more on that later). Second, the professor isn't teaching a lot of these misconceptions. A lot of the things the students say in their papers are ridiculous, though unfortunately I can't post them for confidentiality's sake. But the professor doesn't share those same misconceptions. Her views seem a lot more plausible and nuanced. While that may be just because she's better at expressing them, the other possibility is that it is often the students, not the field at large or the professors, that hold and perpetuate silly misconceptions.