Education without debate is no education

“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” – Benjamin Franklin

The Friday Letter / No. 463 / From Atlanta

The late Richard Paul, a philosophy professor from UC-Berkeley and a pioneer of the critical thinking movement, once told me in an interview that kindergarten children can learn to think critically – that is, logically.

Fifteen years in the college classroom lead me to conclude that undergraduate academic education should have two foundational purposes: learning how to learn by writing, and learning how to use the scientific method in the search for truth in any field.

Everything in academic coursework should fall under one of these two umbrella items. If it doesn't, it's either vocational, such as computer science, film-making, and web design (all worthy subjects), or useless pap like women's studies and queer theory.

(We can see it now. Applicant: Hello, I am Marilyn Buttigieg, D.Qt (Doctor of Queer Theory). I am here to apply for the job of . . . Slam!)

Dr. Paul devoted his life to understanding the art of thinking. If all elections had only two voters, he and I, most would end in a tie. (Paul's understanding of labor economics was influenced by Karl Marx.)

This we agree on: his observation from Critical Thinking: What every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly Changing World that “Recognition of the social, political and moral implications of lower learning is growing with the recognition that both developed and underdeveloped nations face complex problems that cannot be solved except with significant intellectual growth on the part of large masses of people.”

Intellectual growth can occur only where ideas are exchanged freely. Explaining the aesthetics branch of philosophy, the American philosopher Jerome Stolnitz says it's “a process, not an end product, an inquiry, not an almanac. Probably the best way to put it is as old Socrates thought – it is a conversation among earnest minds.”

If even even half of what's said about classroom practices today is true, we must conclude that “conversation among earnest minds” – inquiry, debate, challenge, counterclaim, testing of hypotheses, continual review of methods – is disappearing from the academy, replaced by the force-feeding of strict dogma not to be questioned or challenged.

Spotting a science phony is easy. All you need to hear is “The science is settled.” Science is never settled, despite what the eminent climatologist and seminary flunk-out Al Gore maintains. If science could be settled, we would still be clinging to Ptolemy's assertion that the sun revolves around the earth in a perfect circle – the geocentric thesis that was accepted science for 1,400 years. Several years ago researchers even found a minor flaw in Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Science can't be proved, says Steve Trammel, a philosophy professor now retired from Fort Hays State University. It can only establish a high level of probability. But an hypothesis can be disproved, and most are. Very few make it to the theory stage.

The scientific method of inquiry is fundamental to science and every other field. Advancement of knowledge requires it. It can take many forms but works basically like this:

It starts with a question. The researcher gathers information and makes observations. Aristotle was one of the first to do this when he collected leaves and first separated them into different piles, probably by size, sycamore to pin oak, that sort of thing.

The researcher looks for cause-and-effect relationships. He then constructs a hypothesis and assumes it to be true: In a vacuum, both light and heavy objects fall at the same rate of speed. He tests the hypothesis over and over under identical conditions, and sends it to other researchers to repeat the experiment. Only if the test produces the same result every time can an hypothesis rise to the level of theory.

This is why there can be no theory of the causes of climate change. There are too many variables. Conditions can't be replicated.

We don't know what goes on in physics classrooms, but ideologues have hijacked science in the real world. A few years ago some 600 scientists signed a letter of consensus stating that global warming is caused by greenhouses gases (CO2, which plants absorb and convert to oxygen) produced by burning fossil fuel. Aside from the fact that most of these were not climate scientists, consensus is not part of the scientific method. In testing an hypothesis, scientists don't take a vote to see how popular it is.

“Science operates by a process of criticism,” Gary Saul Morson explains in a recent Wall Street Journal piece (Oct. 12). “Scientists don't experience divine revelations; they propose hypotheses that they and others test. This rigorous process of testing gives science the persuasiveness that mere journalism lacks.”

Morson, a professor of Slavic languages but an observer of human behavior, says the process is “short-circuited” when scientific journals reject research that doesn't accept “some prevailing theory.” These people, he says, “are the true deniers, far more dangerous to science than a religious fundamentalist who believes the world is 6,000 years old.”

(An editorial note here. Morson's use of “theory” is incorrect, because he is talking about conjectures that do not meet the definition of theory, nor even well constructed hypothesis. Most of these are merely unscientific political statements.)

By squelching discovery, our authoritarian government and its media and academic partners are able to suppress questions that come naturally to us. Logical people might want to know why Biden ordered private employers to fire workers who refuse to get a coronavirus vaccination but allows illegal aliens by the hundreds of thousands to pierce our borders with no health check or vaccination requirement. Or why the postal workers union is exempt. Or why Members of Congress are exempt from Biden's plan to spy on our bank accounts.

“Perhaps the clearest sign that a scientist, or anyone else, is misrepresenting science is a confusion of a science with political or social claims that it is thought to imply,” Morson argues. “That is what social Darwinists and Soviet dialectical materialists did. Such claims are never scientific. They are a clear sign of pseudoscience.” Scientists, he says, “should be especially careful not to misrepresent political or policy judgments as being scientific.” Referring to Dr. Fauci, he says scientists “must protest vigorously and loudly when other influential people claim to speak in the name of science while misrepresenting it.”

Biden's handlers are counting on compliant Americans to obey their diktats in silence. To challenge a scientist is to challenge science, they claim, incorrectly. Opposing viewpoints and the questioning of authority shall not be tolerated. Give them simple answers in simple language.

“The growing mass media feed this demand for simple-minded answers, politicians cater to it,” Paul wrote more than 30 years ago.

I used to ask my college freshmen what happens in high school if a student challenges a teacher – the teacher's assumptions, for example. “Mrs. History Teacher, you say that America was founded to protect slavery. What is your basis for that statement? Can you elaborate?” Usually, this scenario doesn't have a good outcome – for the student, many of them would reply. It could result in a visit to the discipline office on grounds of disrespecting the teacher.

In recent years this venomous practice has seeped into the college classroom, where inquiry in the pursuit of knowledge is discouraged and too often punished. A relative who will remain nameless once had a professor who warned students not to challenge her assumptions or anything in the textbook, but to dutifully accept them without question. Oh boy.

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education,” Albert Einstein said. Forcing colleges to stop their toxic indoctrination practices is one of the keys to turning things around in this country.

Short takes on the news

UCLA is one of many universities hiring student mask police to break up social gatherings and snitch on the disobedient if they fail to maintain required distance or fail to show their “clearance certificates.” In a story at The Federalist, Spencer Lindquist calls these uniformed enforcers “Covid commissars” whose citations can result in suspension or expulsion. The student-police are paid $15 an hour. . .

New Jersey allocated $40 million for payments to illegal aliens who missed out on the federal stimulus handouts, Just the News reports. The state's taxpayers will be forced to give $2,000 to illegal couples making up to $55,000 a year. . .

An bill before the Illinois House would allow inmates in state prison to vote absentee. A Republican senator with a corrections background warns that prison gangs could control the voting. . .

By a vote of 51-49, the Senate failed to cut off debate and move a bill that would give the federal government control over all elections. Although Article 1 of the Constitution vests this authority with the states, Democrats hope a sympathetic Supreme Court would allow them to cement control over future elections by repealing all state election laws. The bill is euphemistically called The Freedom to Vote Act but would allow wide-open voting with no requirement to show identification or citizenship status, and nationwide mail-in balloting. . .

Fauci's claim to Congress that he did not approve grants for gain-of-function research at the CCP virology lab begins to unravel with release of a letter from the NIH deputy director to a Congressional committee. Gain-of-function increases the severity of a pathogen. See full story at Just the News. . .

Garland tells the House Judiciary Committee that the Justice Department is doing everything it can to keep fentanyl out of the country, ignoring the Biden Administration's order that the southern border, where most of the illegal drugs enter, remain open. Drug overdose deaths are about 70,000 a year in the U.S. Garland refuses to answer Gohmert's question about the number of FBI informants who helped instigate the Jan. 6 Capitol Building disturbance. . .

Transportation Secretary Buttigieg says empty shelves just show how well our economy is doing, with strong demand that outstrips supply, as in Venezuela and Cuba. . .

Richard Levine, a man who calls himself a woman and goes by Rachel, is promoted to admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service. “Levine suffers from transgenderism, a mental disorder which leads people to believe that they are the opposite gender from the one they were born,” Eric Lendrum writes at American Greatness. Levine is Assistant Secretary of health.

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