Franklin County native Dr. Mark W. Durm, professor emeritus of Athens State University in Athens, Alabama, has penned a book titled “Growing Wiser, Knowing Less,” featuring a collection of intriguing articles about life that he has written over the years.

Durm graduated from Franklin County High School in 1968 and has worked as a professor of psychology for 38 years at Athens State University. His primary areas of instruction were critical thinking, statistics and physiological psychology.  

Dr. Durm’s book consists of 96 newspaper columns written over 16 years from 2003 to 2019. They primarily appeared in the Sunday edition of the Athens News Courier in Athens, Alabama. The book is available at amazon.com.

Due to teaching critical thinking at the university level for decades, many of Durm’s writings focus on critical thinking or the lack thereof.

“When one writes, the results usually fall into one of two categories,” Durm said. “You can write statements that align with what most people already believe. Such statements make people feel warm, fuzzy and comfortable. However, such writing changes little, if anything, about how or what they think. Or you can write to afflict the comfortable, to stir up their minds, and make those brain cells get a little exercise.”

It’s not surprising that, being a college professor for 45 years, Durm favors stirring up minds.

About the book

The book includes three columns on “Truth Fragments,” one of which concerns church burnings and female breast cancer, which he says are not related except in relation to misguided thinking.

Other column topics include “Stubbornness of Misinformation,” “Beware of Big Numbers, Usually A Bunch Of Bull,” “Cause and Effect: On Growing Wiser and Knowing Less,” “Ignorance About Medicine Risks and Dying,” “Admitting We Know Less about More,” “Your World View and Stretching Rubber Bands,” as well as several about family: “Is America Becoming A Matriarchal Society,” “Family Values,” “Understanding The Stopped Watch Syndrome,” “Where Have All the Fathers Gone,” “Children’s Bodies Growing Adult At Earlier Ages,” “The Biggest, Strongest Man I Know,” “Then I Have A Very Good Mother,” and others.

Several religious topics are also discussed with columns including “Foundations of Easter,” “Was Jesus 43 When He Died?”; “What Is the Color Of God?,” “When Does Behavior Become A Sin?,” “A Story About God And Tornadoes,” “Why Isn’t Christmas On March 25^th,” “Religions Should Unite People Not Divide Them,” and others.

Durm resides on his farm in Athens and continues to research and write while heading his own company that invests in real estate in Alabama and other states.