many excellent points here of which i am in full agreement, though I must say that I have learned from several college instructors the important value of critical thinking. its unfair to characterize higher education as a place where you learn by rote only to regurgitate on command. and yes, certain disciplines require THE right answers, no argument, not up for discussion or opinion, scientific fact, period. unfortunately there are people these days who choose not to accept science. but thats a whole other can of worms, right? 🥴
Critical thinking was a big aspect of my University education. Whilst the extreme emphasis on rote learning in almost all education (including primary and secondary school) is an issue, I have learned a great deal about my field, with knowledge I am able to apply to real situations in my specialisation. The entire University system needs an overhaul without a doubt, yet I wouldn’t go so far as to call it less valuable than non-academic or apprenticeship jobs (which I have heard). Both are needed, and there are quite a few jobs that require the intense level of theoretical knowledge that comes with a formal degree, as much as I disagree with many aspects of the university system. Memorisation holds greater importance and relevance in certain fields.
The elitism in academia and scientific communities causes an unnecessary divide between those with a degree and the rest of the world—where knowledge must be paid for, rather than obtained and specialised in through passion and interest. There are people who receive their degrees and, like you say Athena, see themselves as better than others—that their word is law because they have a piece of paper. I don’t discredit the entire concept of University purely because of this, as I’ve met many professionals in my field who do not share this snobbishness whatsoever, but rather share see a personal value in what they do.
Higher education is also, for many people—a path out of their circumstances, particularly in fields where jobs are almost guaranteed. This is one of many reasons why immigrant families tend to push the idea of higher education onto their children. Some people simply do not have the connections nor the social leverage to make a good life for themselves out of non-academic work alone.
I do not know a great deal about how the system differs in the United States, other than the costs and payment of University education are ridiculous, so I cannot speak to that. Thank you for the post.
If belief in human rationality was a scientific theory it would long since have been abandoned. A striking falsification can be found in a classic of social psychology, 'When Prophecy Fails' (1956), a study of a UFO cult in the early 1950s. Written by a team led by Leon Festinger, the psychologist who developed the idea of cognitive dissonance, the book recounts how a Michigan woman claimed to have received messages in automatic writing from alien intelligences on another planet announcing the end of the world, which would be inundated by a great flood in the hours before dawn on 21 December 1954. The woman and her disciples had left their homes, jobs and partners and given away their possessions, in order to be ready for the arrival of a flying saucer that would rescue them from the doomed planet.
For Festinger and his colleagues, this was an opportunity to test the theory of cognitive dissonance. According to the theory, human beings do not deal with conflicting beliefs and perceptions by testing them against facts. They reduce the conflict by reinterpreting facts that challenge the beliefs to which they are most attached. As T. S. Eliot wrote in Burnt Norton, human kind cannot bear very much reality.
In order to test the theory, the psychologists infiltrated themselves into the cult and observed the reaction when the apocalypse failed to occur. Just as the theory predicted, the cultists refused to accept that their system of beliefs was mistaken. Instead, they interpreted the failure of doomsday to arrive as evidence that by waiting and praying throughout the night they had succeeded in preventing it. The confounding of all their expectations only led them to cling more tightly to their faith, and they went on to proselytize for their beliefs all the more fervently. As Festinger writes, summarizing this process:
"Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong; what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervour about convincing and converting other people to his view."
-John Gray, "The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths".
This is very interesting. I don't remember anyone telling me what to think at school or at university. My understanding of the purpose of that education, looking back, was to give me a certain knowledge base and certain mental tools that would assist me in processing the various forms of information I was likely to encounter in my life as an adult.
But then again: I grew up in an environment of extraordinary educational privilege. My high school was the kind of place where every student who studied a foreign language for 5-6 years (it was a combined junior-senior high school) would graduate from school fluent enough in that language that, had they wanted to, they could most probably have gone straight to university in a country where that language was spoken - with no further preparation.
And my university numbers among those whose professors are the world's leading thinkers in their fields. No one tells you what to think there. There is no regurgitation on exams. You are rewarded for showing evidence of thought far more than for getting the right answer. In fact, if you give the correct answer (in a matter where there is a specific correct answer), but do not show how you arrived at your conclusion, it is doubtful whether you will even pass.
If, on the other hand, you show evidence of your thought process and got almost everything right, but made just one little mistake that led to a wrong answer, it's not impossible that you could get an A on the exam.
If you are in a seminar course, the class could be as small as four people. And it is not at all unheard of for the professor to state up front in so many words, "I expect each of you to contribute as much to the class as I do. If you do not talk, you will not pass."
I don't know - maybe times have changed. After all, I am nearly 60 years old. But that is how things really were back in my day, and indeed, up to the very end of my father's 45-year career as a professor at one of these institutions, which takes us up to ca. 2005.
I follow Athena because of my research into psychopathy, but I find myself in complete agreement with this post. And her reasons for doubting "experts" whose expertise is based primarily on paper are insightful and spot on. I would like to attempt to add to them.
The human brain is, in essence, a pattern recognizer. That's what it does. Your eyes and ears take in sensory information and the brain gets busy matching it to known images or sounds. And the brain does this with everything, not just senses.
So as we try to grapple with the world, we base our understanding of things on patterns that we either recognize or are shown. This is why humans see the world in narratives. And many humans oversimplify their understanding of complex things into narratives. That's a mistake, and many "experts" are more prone to doing this than regular people.
To teach something to a mass of people, you have to break it down into generalities. The more simple the generalities, the easier it is to teach. This is why Marxism is so appealing to many undergrads. The world is broken down into narratives that seem sensible at first glance.
In many fields, the narratives form into "truths" that become unchallenged. This is a particular problem today because most teaching is now so infused with progressive ideology. Rigid ideology. Catechism. And almost none of this ideology holds up to evidence. It's appeal is not based on evidence but on the simplicity of the narratives.
I think the same thing applies in psychology, but at least psychology has to ultimately be tested by results in the clinical setting. If what was taught in school doesn't work, the clinician soon has to reject it. They might not be able to do so publicly, but they want to be able to treat their patients effectively.
I’m also so impressed by the intelligence of the community of thinkers that follow you, as evidenced by these comments. You should feel proud of this, even though you can’t, literally. Perhaps contentment? An intellectual knowing that you are furthering knowledge and thoughtful discourse among some people whom you might logically respect?
Good points in this post. The way I have come to understand it is this: The ability to be confronted with ideas or data which run contradictory to long held beliefs or education on the subject, but which are nonetheless more scientifically supported and more correct than the old ideas, and seeing the truth in the new material... then to discard the long held beliefs and education in favor of the new, more scientifically supported material- is the mark of the highest functioning scientifically aware intellects. As you mentioned, it requires placing the ego secondary to gain true knowledge and this is exceedingly difficult to do, especially for people that are less endowed with intelligence than they oughtta be for their position in their field (Dunning Kruger comes into play here).
It's real hard to overcome the ego I guess, even when the payoff is greater awareness. Which is something that has benefited me a great deal. I don't have any education, there was no money for it. But I do know how to leave my ego at home when I am at work or somewhere that I have an opportunity to learn from people who know what I feel like I need to know.. so my lack of formal education hasn't held me back too much.
I apologize (probably for the dozenth time) for the wall of text comment, which could be shortened to: You nailed it. :-)
But, I'm late to the party, so I haven't a clue about this:
"If you have followed my writing for any length of time you have seen the numerous examples of “experts” that have their alphabet soup in order, but couldn’t critically think their way out of a paper bag, type in very long sentences in very bold caps telling me that I have no idea what I’m talking about, but can’t have a discussion with me about facts."
I can't imagine any professional behaving this way. I'm baffled. Why do they seek you out to be so disrespectful? Do you think it's possible that they have already decided who you are based on your diagnosis? Do they question the validity of your diagnosis? Or, do they question your integrity because of it? This is beyond unprofessional. Could you give me an idea of what you mean? I'm trying to fit this in context with the article as a whole. Thanks.
There's also a matter of groupthink at play, permeating those 3 reasons you mention.
Many experts who presume having critical thinking are actually critical of any thought that deviates from the line of though whose hierarchy they subscribe to.
In some cases, I've objectively noticed that aspiring experts won't even at all bother to look into ideas that are not aligned with those of their rankings, both because they wouldn't have time/energy and because they have a notion that pissing out of the proverbial pot would not be conducive to their career advancement.
Clever people are aware that being intelligent is not always to their benefit, simply put. Unbound critical thinking seems to be in some cases anathema to career progression.
Which is rather sad, and potentially troublesome. Extreme specialization is creating a moral fragmentation that allows atrocities to be freely made in the name of science, when it truth they best serve economical interests. Sometimes it feels as though we're in a era not to different from that which preceded the scientific revolution.
Although I am a strong proponent of higher education, I agree with everything you mentioned in this article. You clearly pointed out the issues. I would further add that many fields still have an ‘old boys’ club’ mentality, where colleagues will protect each other at great cost to the virtues we should all hold dear, as decent people interested in truth, and furthering the knowledge and betterment of humankind. I have witnessed biopoc individuals, women, LGTBTIA identifying people treated horribly in higher education, for the mere reason they weren’t white men with penises. Some fields, like psychology and psychiatry, are worse than others.
That is all I would add. I hope we are all able to think critically, to improve our body of knowledge, for the pursuit of education, at its’ core, is a noble one.
I agree. Especially with the fact that ego supplants the self-critical thinking and reflection that is paramount to any field of thought or endeavor. Ego hates being wrong. Ego is a temperamental child with the power to bully people into submission, especially the egoist him- or herself. True progressive thought (as opposed to the prevailing so-called progressive school of hive thought that accepts what it is told because it fits the agenda) means accepting the possibility - or even probability - that you’re mistaken, not completely right, or clearly wrong. go is satisfied if you’ve made it to some pinnacle in you’re field that is considered unassailable. I don’t think Einstein ever fell into this trap, even in his early years. Or if he did, he corrected his navigational chart as needed as quickly as possible. He was a great critical thinker, as opposed to the Robert Hare you describe.
I earned a science BS. I’m an artist/liberal arts type by nature, so it was quite a struggle. specially with courses like Molecular Cell Biology and Physics to contend with. Gruesome, at times, and I doubt there’s a Nobel on my horizon.I I was working full-time nights also, so my GPA was not 4.9. But I did it. My takeaway is that I showed perseverance, discipline, mind-shift to scientific thinking, etc. These characteristics have stayed with me, so the university experience made me a better person. These are all general things that have nothing to do with what degree I earned. I can look at someone who graduated from MIT and give them credit for this accomplishment, but I hold back from deciding what value this all has by observing what they do with their lives - and other lives they may influence. The Crypto ass**** is a shining example of MIT gone wrong, to the extent that he leveraged all he had going for him to do a load of bad - not just for himself and his circle of friends, but many others.
All of us need a healthy dose of critical (but not judgmental/ego driven) self reflection that takes everything under consideration. A truly open, engaging, proactive mind. Simple enough, if you tell the ego to have a seat and shut the f*** up.
I have many examples where my creative mind has led me down a rabbit hole that critical thinking would have avoided.
Lots of good points. It seems to me that you're focusing on a subset of the many issues around higher ed (versus) being self-taught. Lots of people do both. Also - getting bad info, uncritically accepting junk and then re-spouting junk, can happen no matter where one gets input from. The availability of quantities of info way beyond the capacity of any human to digest is only accelerating too... and even AI systems develop biases based upon their particular inputs plus internal algorithms/neural networks/whatever, it's looking like... so rather than an academic degree granting unquestionable expertise, some folks look at it as one way to have confidence that someone's take on a situation wasn't informed by a conspiracy theorist living in a basement who got their background from voices in their head. One skill that can be learned in higher ed is "vetting sources". That process has its own biases of course! But one sometimes has to make a decision.
So where does one turn if there is a new crack in a bridge that you are driving over every morning to get to work? Someone who just looked at the internet about the topic, someone who is a bridge hobbyist and maybe looked at a few dozen problem bridges during their free time, or someone who got a relevant engineering degree - which takes years of study, requires certificates and continuing study to practice, knows the right tools to perhaps take appropriate imaging of the bridge crack to show microscopic failures in the material or whatnot, has to keep their skills updated with the admittedly-sometimes-flawed output of studies by other engineering researchers who themselves had to get a certain alphabet soup to do their jobs...
There's no perfect solution to any of this, and I feel that "expertise" in some fields is highly overrated and does indeed involve every bit of ego etc. that this post mentions. The lives of many readers here have been affected negatively by such people. Yet sometimes these systems of verification of background study can be the best we can do. It's not always to "feel a sense of stability" - it can give one the best chance to physically survive critical dangers, among many other things.
Wow, great article. Although I'm open minded, I have a hard beliving in the existence of a god. The bible does not persuade me and I end up being bias. But what if there is a god? So many questions, so little answers and so little time.
Fabulous article. I reminded me of the experience of a friend of mine who got a second PhD -- in Materials Science -- who at the same time created a new and different way of looking at the structure of crystals. (And her PhD thesis was about this methodology.)
Simply put, at the time, scientists in this field looked at the locations of atoms in the crystal in terms of x-y-z coordinates. My friend looked at them as having various positions on the ring/chain of atomic bonds. Eg, whether a particular atom was one, or two, or three bonds "away from" another particular atom. And how the chains were interlinked. (This is perhaps not quite technically correct; but the basic idea of x-y-z versus position on a chain holds true. It may have been molecules rather than atoms that she looked at.) She was examining silicon-based glazes in pottery--which form many different varieties of chains depending on things like composition of the materials and heat of the kiln.
Anyway, my point is that aside from the fact that her thesis-advisor/professor was fully "on board" with her ideas, the rest of the field was not. Her ideas were pooh-poohed and dismissed as irrelevant and useless.
This is basically the Galileo phenomenon that you describe oh so well in your article. "Information and ideas and data that don't fit into my existing cognitive model must be wrong." While it's possible that including critical thinking in education -- especially including it in "lower" education, ie, grade school and/or middle and/or high school -- might well improve this phenomenon (especially in civics where it is so desperately needed), I'm not all that hopeful. This whole cognitive bias thing is persistent. And as one other poster observed, the brain looks for patterns, and sees them even when they don't exist (faces on Mars). And once we do see a pattern, apparently it's really hard to "unsee" it.
After following Athena for a while, I observe with dismay how the terms "psychopath" and "sociopath" are tossed around by both fiction and "real life" authors in all sorts of fields, without any sort of accuracy. And yes, she also gives dismaying examples of how professionals are both sloppy and inaccurate-re-the-neuroscience.
However, Galileo's views won out in the end. Perhaps similar results will prevail re the neuroscience of psychopathy (and sociopathy and narcissism).
OK, I'll be honest, I didn't read this in depth because a college memory surfaced.
Which...
Caused me to laugh uncontrollably.
I majored in the technical aspects of running both video and audio studios.
There was a class during my senior year which used very outdated equipment ( it was described as "high level" and "difficult.")
At this point in time I was already working at a major Hollywood recording studio. Paid.
I informed the TA, yes a TA was teaching, the equipment was antiquated, but I would like to assist with getting everyone current on technology.
His reply was, "You're here to get a degree, not a job."
To which I replied, "Then what's the point of being here?"
many excellent points here of which i am in full agreement, though I must say that I have learned from several college instructors the important value of critical thinking. its unfair to characterize higher education as a place where you learn by rote only to regurgitate on command. and yes, certain disciplines require THE right answers, no argument, not up for discussion or opinion, scientific fact, period. unfortunately there are people these days who choose not to accept science. but thats a whole other can of worms, right? 🥴
Critical thinking was a big aspect of my University education. Whilst the extreme emphasis on rote learning in almost all education (including primary and secondary school) is an issue, I have learned a great deal about my field, with knowledge I am able to apply to real situations in my specialisation. The entire University system needs an overhaul without a doubt, yet I wouldn’t go so far as to call it less valuable than non-academic or apprenticeship jobs (which I have heard). Both are needed, and there are quite a few jobs that require the intense level of theoretical knowledge that comes with a formal degree, as much as I disagree with many aspects of the university system. Memorisation holds greater importance and relevance in certain fields.
The elitism in academia and scientific communities causes an unnecessary divide between those with a degree and the rest of the world—where knowledge must be paid for, rather than obtained and specialised in through passion and interest. There are people who receive their degrees and, like you say Athena, see themselves as better than others—that their word is law because they have a piece of paper. I don’t discredit the entire concept of University purely because of this, as I’ve met many professionals in my field who do not share this snobbishness whatsoever, but rather share see a personal value in what they do.
Higher education is also, for many people—a path out of their circumstances, particularly in fields where jobs are almost guaranteed. This is one of many reasons why immigrant families tend to push the idea of higher education onto their children. Some people simply do not have the connections nor the social leverage to make a good life for themselves out of non-academic work alone.
I do not know a great deal about how the system differs in the United States, other than the costs and payment of University education are ridiculous, so I cannot speak to that. Thank you for the post.
If belief in human rationality was a scientific theory it would long since have been abandoned. A striking falsification can be found in a classic of social psychology, 'When Prophecy Fails' (1956), a study of a UFO cult in the early 1950s. Written by a team led by Leon Festinger, the psychologist who developed the idea of cognitive dissonance, the book recounts how a Michigan woman claimed to have received messages in automatic writing from alien intelligences on another planet announcing the end of the world, which would be inundated by a great flood in the hours before dawn on 21 December 1954. The woman and her disciples had left their homes, jobs and partners and given away their possessions, in order to be ready for the arrival of a flying saucer that would rescue them from the doomed planet.
For Festinger and his colleagues, this was an opportunity to test the theory of cognitive dissonance. According to the theory, human beings do not deal with conflicting beliefs and perceptions by testing them against facts. They reduce the conflict by reinterpreting facts that challenge the beliefs to which they are most attached. As T. S. Eliot wrote in Burnt Norton, human kind cannot bear very much reality.
In order to test the theory, the psychologists infiltrated themselves into the cult and observed the reaction when the apocalypse failed to occur. Just as the theory predicted, the cultists refused to accept that their system of beliefs was mistaken. Instead, they interpreted the failure of doomsday to arrive as evidence that by waiting and praying throughout the night they had succeeded in preventing it. The confounding of all their expectations only led them to cling more tightly to their faith, and they went on to proselytize for their beliefs all the more fervently. As Festinger writes, summarizing this process:
"Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong; what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervour about convincing and converting other people to his view."
-John Gray, "The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths".
This is very interesting. I don't remember anyone telling me what to think at school or at university. My understanding of the purpose of that education, looking back, was to give me a certain knowledge base and certain mental tools that would assist me in processing the various forms of information I was likely to encounter in my life as an adult.
But then again: I grew up in an environment of extraordinary educational privilege. My high school was the kind of place where every student who studied a foreign language for 5-6 years (it was a combined junior-senior high school) would graduate from school fluent enough in that language that, had they wanted to, they could most probably have gone straight to university in a country where that language was spoken - with no further preparation.
And my university numbers among those whose professors are the world's leading thinkers in their fields. No one tells you what to think there. There is no regurgitation on exams. You are rewarded for showing evidence of thought far more than for getting the right answer. In fact, if you give the correct answer (in a matter where there is a specific correct answer), but do not show how you arrived at your conclusion, it is doubtful whether you will even pass.
If, on the other hand, you show evidence of your thought process and got almost everything right, but made just one little mistake that led to a wrong answer, it's not impossible that you could get an A on the exam.
If you are in a seminar course, the class could be as small as four people. And it is not at all unheard of for the professor to state up front in so many words, "I expect each of you to contribute as much to the class as I do. If you do not talk, you will not pass."
I don't know - maybe times have changed. After all, I am nearly 60 years old. But that is how things really were back in my day, and indeed, up to the very end of my father's 45-year career as a professor at one of these institutions, which takes us up to ca. 2005.
I follow Athena because of my research into psychopathy, but I find myself in complete agreement with this post. And her reasons for doubting "experts" whose expertise is based primarily on paper are insightful and spot on. I would like to attempt to add to them.
The human brain is, in essence, a pattern recognizer. That's what it does. Your eyes and ears take in sensory information and the brain gets busy matching it to known images or sounds. And the brain does this with everything, not just senses.
So as we try to grapple with the world, we base our understanding of things on patterns that we either recognize or are shown. This is why humans see the world in narratives. And many humans oversimplify their understanding of complex things into narratives. That's a mistake, and many "experts" are more prone to doing this than regular people.
To teach something to a mass of people, you have to break it down into generalities. The more simple the generalities, the easier it is to teach. This is why Marxism is so appealing to many undergrads. The world is broken down into narratives that seem sensible at first glance.
In many fields, the narratives form into "truths" that become unchallenged. This is a particular problem today because most teaching is now so infused with progressive ideology. Rigid ideology. Catechism. And almost none of this ideology holds up to evidence. It's appeal is not based on evidence but on the simplicity of the narratives.
I think the same thing applies in psychology, but at least psychology has to ultimately be tested by results in the clinical setting. If what was taught in school doesn't work, the clinician soon has to reject it. They might not be able to do so publicly, but they want to be able to treat their patients effectively.
I’m also so impressed by the intelligence of the community of thinkers that follow you, as evidenced by these comments. You should feel proud of this, even though you can’t, literally. Perhaps contentment? An intellectual knowing that you are furthering knowledge and thoughtful discourse among some people whom you might logically respect?
Good points in this post. The way I have come to understand it is this: The ability to be confronted with ideas or data which run contradictory to long held beliefs or education on the subject, but which are nonetheless more scientifically supported and more correct than the old ideas, and seeing the truth in the new material... then to discard the long held beliefs and education in favor of the new, more scientifically supported material- is the mark of the highest functioning scientifically aware intellects. As you mentioned, it requires placing the ego secondary to gain true knowledge and this is exceedingly difficult to do, especially for people that are less endowed with intelligence than they oughtta be for their position in their field (Dunning Kruger comes into play here).
It's real hard to overcome the ego I guess, even when the payoff is greater awareness. Which is something that has benefited me a great deal. I don't have any education, there was no money for it. But I do know how to leave my ego at home when I am at work or somewhere that I have an opportunity to learn from people who know what I feel like I need to know.. so my lack of formal education hasn't held me back too much.
I apologize (probably for the dozenth time) for the wall of text comment, which could be shortened to: You nailed it. :-)
Great article, Athena, bravo.
Speaking of critical thinking, please don't miss this funny comic strip by The Oatmeal:
"You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you":
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
Athena, this was fascinating. Thank you!
But, I'm late to the party, so I haven't a clue about this:
"If you have followed my writing for any length of time you have seen the numerous examples of “experts” that have their alphabet soup in order, but couldn’t critically think their way out of a paper bag, type in very long sentences in very bold caps telling me that I have no idea what I’m talking about, but can’t have a discussion with me about facts."
I can't imagine any professional behaving this way. I'm baffled. Why do they seek you out to be so disrespectful? Do you think it's possible that they have already decided who you are based on your diagnosis? Do they question the validity of your diagnosis? Or, do they question your integrity because of it? This is beyond unprofessional. Could you give me an idea of what you mean? I'm trying to fit this in context with the article as a whole. Thanks.
There's also a matter of groupthink at play, permeating those 3 reasons you mention.
Many experts who presume having critical thinking are actually critical of any thought that deviates from the line of though whose hierarchy they subscribe to.
In some cases, I've objectively noticed that aspiring experts won't even at all bother to look into ideas that are not aligned with those of their rankings, both because they wouldn't have time/energy and because they have a notion that pissing out of the proverbial pot would not be conducive to their career advancement.
Clever people are aware that being intelligent is not always to their benefit, simply put. Unbound critical thinking seems to be in some cases anathema to career progression.
Which is rather sad, and potentially troublesome. Extreme specialization is creating a moral fragmentation that allows atrocities to be freely made in the name of science, when it truth they best serve economical interests. Sometimes it feels as though we're in a era not to different from that which preceded the scientific revolution.
https://moregasbord.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/scientism.jpg
Although I am a strong proponent of higher education, I agree with everything you mentioned in this article. You clearly pointed out the issues. I would further add that many fields still have an ‘old boys’ club’ mentality, where colleagues will protect each other at great cost to the virtues we should all hold dear, as decent people interested in truth, and furthering the knowledge and betterment of humankind. I have witnessed biopoc individuals, women, LGTBTIA identifying people treated horribly in higher education, for the mere reason they weren’t white men with penises. Some fields, like psychology and psychiatry, are worse than others.
That is all I would add. I hope we are all able to think critically, to improve our body of knowledge, for the pursuit of education, at its’ core, is a noble one.
I agree. Especially with the fact that ego supplants the self-critical thinking and reflection that is paramount to any field of thought or endeavor. Ego hates being wrong. Ego is a temperamental child with the power to bully people into submission, especially the egoist him- or herself. True progressive thought (as opposed to the prevailing so-called progressive school of hive thought that accepts what it is told because it fits the agenda) means accepting the possibility - or even probability - that you’re mistaken, not completely right, or clearly wrong. go is satisfied if you’ve made it to some pinnacle in you’re field that is considered unassailable. I don’t think Einstein ever fell into this trap, even in his early years. Or if he did, he corrected his navigational chart as needed as quickly as possible. He was a great critical thinker, as opposed to the Robert Hare you describe.
I earned a science BS. I’m an artist/liberal arts type by nature, so it was quite a struggle. specially with courses like Molecular Cell Biology and Physics to contend with. Gruesome, at times, and I doubt there’s a Nobel on my horizon.I I was working full-time nights also, so my GPA was not 4.9. But I did it. My takeaway is that I showed perseverance, discipline, mind-shift to scientific thinking, etc. These characteristics have stayed with me, so the university experience made me a better person. These are all general things that have nothing to do with what degree I earned. I can look at someone who graduated from MIT and give them credit for this accomplishment, but I hold back from deciding what value this all has by observing what they do with their lives - and other lives they may influence. The Crypto ass**** is a shining example of MIT gone wrong, to the extent that he leveraged all he had going for him to do a load of bad - not just for himself and his circle of friends, but many others.
All of us need a healthy dose of critical (but not judgmental/ego driven) self reflection that takes everything under consideration. A truly open, engaging, proactive mind. Simple enough, if you tell the ego to have a seat and shut the f*** up.
I have many examples where my creative mind has led me down a rabbit hole that critical thinking would have avoided.
Lots of good points. It seems to me that you're focusing on a subset of the many issues around higher ed (versus) being self-taught. Lots of people do both. Also - getting bad info, uncritically accepting junk and then re-spouting junk, can happen no matter where one gets input from. The availability of quantities of info way beyond the capacity of any human to digest is only accelerating too... and even AI systems develop biases based upon their particular inputs plus internal algorithms/neural networks/whatever, it's looking like... so rather than an academic degree granting unquestionable expertise, some folks look at it as one way to have confidence that someone's take on a situation wasn't informed by a conspiracy theorist living in a basement who got their background from voices in their head. One skill that can be learned in higher ed is "vetting sources". That process has its own biases of course! But one sometimes has to make a decision.
So where does one turn if there is a new crack in a bridge that you are driving over every morning to get to work? Someone who just looked at the internet about the topic, someone who is a bridge hobbyist and maybe looked at a few dozen problem bridges during their free time, or someone who got a relevant engineering degree - which takes years of study, requires certificates and continuing study to practice, knows the right tools to perhaps take appropriate imaging of the bridge crack to show microscopic failures in the material or whatnot, has to keep their skills updated with the admittedly-sometimes-flawed output of studies by other engineering researchers who themselves had to get a certain alphabet soup to do their jobs...
There's no perfect solution to any of this, and I feel that "expertise" in some fields is highly overrated and does indeed involve every bit of ego etc. that this post mentions. The lives of many readers here have been affected negatively by such people. Yet sometimes these systems of verification of background study can be the best we can do. It's not always to "feel a sense of stability" - it can give one the best chance to physically survive critical dangers, among many other things.
Wow, great article. Although I'm open minded, I have a hard beliving in the existence of a god. The bible does not persuade me and I end up being bias. But what if there is a god? So many questions, so little answers and so little time.
Fabulous article. I reminded me of the experience of a friend of mine who got a second PhD -- in Materials Science -- who at the same time created a new and different way of looking at the structure of crystals. (And her PhD thesis was about this methodology.)
Simply put, at the time, scientists in this field looked at the locations of atoms in the crystal in terms of x-y-z coordinates. My friend looked at them as having various positions on the ring/chain of atomic bonds. Eg, whether a particular atom was one, or two, or three bonds "away from" another particular atom. And how the chains were interlinked. (This is perhaps not quite technically correct; but the basic idea of x-y-z versus position on a chain holds true. It may have been molecules rather than atoms that she looked at.) She was examining silicon-based glazes in pottery--which form many different varieties of chains depending on things like composition of the materials and heat of the kiln.
Anyway, my point is that aside from the fact that her thesis-advisor/professor was fully "on board" with her ideas, the rest of the field was not. Her ideas were pooh-poohed and dismissed as irrelevant and useless.
This is basically the Galileo phenomenon that you describe oh so well in your article. "Information and ideas and data that don't fit into my existing cognitive model must be wrong." While it's possible that including critical thinking in education -- especially including it in "lower" education, ie, grade school and/or middle and/or high school -- might well improve this phenomenon (especially in civics where it is so desperately needed), I'm not all that hopeful. This whole cognitive bias thing is persistent. And as one other poster observed, the brain looks for patterns, and sees them even when they don't exist (faces on Mars). And once we do see a pattern, apparently it's really hard to "unsee" it.
After following Athena for a while, I observe with dismay how the terms "psychopath" and "sociopath" are tossed around by both fiction and "real life" authors in all sorts of fields, without any sort of accuracy. And yes, she also gives dismaying examples of how professionals are both sloppy and inaccurate-re-the-neuroscience.
However, Galileo's views won out in the end. Perhaps similar results will prevail re the neuroscience of psychopathy (and sociopathy and narcissism).