Opinion
Teaching and Propaganda
The response by Vit Klemes (Physics Today, March 2000, page 100) to a report
about the Kansas State Board of Educations decision to exclude evolution
theory from its science standards has rekindled some old issues in the
perennial sciencereligion debate in education. In particular, Klemes poses
the question of the proper relationship of science to politics and ideology.
This discussion has caused me to reflect on my own role as a teacher and, in
particular, to remind me of two of my former students, Doug and Jamal. Both
of them had taken my introductory modern physics course during their
freshman or sophomore college year.
Doug was an excellent student, and demonstrated a wonderful understanding of
what I was teaching. But across the top of his almost perfect final
examination paper he wrote, I still dont believe in relativity!
Jamal was not the type to be so direct. He came into my office a few years
later (just before he was about to graduate) to say goodbye. We chatted
awhile, I wished him well, and then, as he was about to leave, he turned to
me and said hesitantly in his characteristically shy way: Do you remember
that stuff you taught us about how the universe originated in the Big Bang
about 15 billion years ago? Well, I dont really believe all that. I must
have looked surprised because he went on. It kind of conflicts with my
religious beliefs. He looked apprehensively at me, perhaps to see if I
might be offended or angry or think less of him. But I simply smiled and let
it pass.
Why was I not displeased with someone who had rejected a whole semester of
my teachings on the physical origins of the universe, and instead possibly
believed that the world was created by God about 6000 years ago? Why did I
not leap to the defense of science against such irrational beliefs? (For the
record, I am perfectly comfortable with the standard scientific models of
cosmology and evolution, and am not a closet creationist.)
Every time I teach an introductory modern physics course and look at the
students final exams, a sense of puzzlement comes over me. Not because some
students have taken the elegant theories of relativity and quantum mechanics
and made a total hash of them (which happens all too often, unfortunately),
but because so many of them seem to actually believe the theories. The
difficulties those students have are mostly procedural, in the sense that
they find it difficult to apply the theories correctly in the given
situations.
I used to ask myself why they believed what I taught them. For one thing, as
we now know from research into physics education, everyday phenomena and
experience conspire to produce students who think that any motion requires a
force. Such a preconception makes even Newtonian mechanics a tough
proposition to sell them. (See Teaching Physics: Figuring Out What Works, by
Edward F. Redish and Richard N. Steinberg, Physics Today, January 1999, page
24.) Furthermore, the ideas of relativity and quantum mechanics are so
thoroughly contrary to everyday experience that I would expect students, on
first hearing these notions, to reject them out of hand.
I used to wonder whether most students were like Jamal, secretly rejecting
everything I said, but acting otherwise in order to get good grades. But not
many students can successfully maintain that level of dualistic thinking
over a long period of time. I finally concluded that most students believe
me because they trust me, they feel that I have their best interests at
heart and that I would not deliberately deceive them by teaching things that
I myself did not believe. They also trust the institution that awarded me a
physics PhD, and the university and the physics department that hired me and
allow me to teach them.
And I use that trust to effectively brainwash them. We who teach
introductory physics have to acknowledge, if we are honest with ourselves,
that our teaching methods are primarily those of propaganda. We
appealwithout demonstrationto evidence that supports our position. We only
introduce arguments or evidence that support the currently accepted
theories, and omit or gloss over any evidence to the contrary. We give short
shrift to alternative theories, introducing them only in order to promptly
demolish themagain by appealing to undemonstrated counter-evidence. We drop
the names of famous scientists and Nobel prizewinners to show that we are
solidly on the side of the scientific establishment. All of this is designed
to demonstrate the inevitability of the ideas we currently hold, so that if
students reject what we say, they are declaring themselves to be unreasoning
and illogical, unworthy of being considered as modern, thinking people.
Of course, we do all this with the best of intentions and complete
sincerity. I have good reasons for employing propaganda techniques to
achieve belief. I want my students to be accepted as modern people and to
know what that entails. The courses are too rushed to allow a thorough
airing of all views, of all evidence. In addition, it is impossible for
students to personally carry out the necessary experiments, even if they
were able to construct the long chains of inferential reasoning required to
interpret the experimental results.
So I, like all my colleagues, teach the way I do because I have little
choice. But it is brainwashing nonetheless. When the dust settles, what I am
asking my students to do is to accept what I say because I, as an accredited
representative of my discipline, profession, and academia, say it. All the
reason, logic, and evidence that I use simply disguise the fact that the
students are not yet in a position to sift and weigh the evidence and arrive
at their own conclusions.
Conflicting goals of teaching
But if students believe my views on science because of who I am and what I
represent, what makes this better than believing others who also claim to
speak in their best interests but give them contrary views, such as those of
creationism? Lets suppose I have two students, both of whom take my course
and have listened carefully to what I have to say. One believes it and moves
on. The other tells me she rejects it because she is unconvinced by me and
cannot reconcile my teachings with her other beliefs. Which student response
should I prefer?
One part of me (the part reflecting my academic training and professional
instincts) tells me to prefer the former. Is that not the goal of teaching
science: to pass on the hard-earned knowledge gained by our scientific
predecessors to the next generation, so that they can build on it? But I am
still uneasy because such good students have accepted what I say mainly
because I said it, and are thus also more likely to unquestioningly accept
the words of experts in other areas, whether they be in politics, the
military, religion, or the media. These so-called experts will (like me)
cloak their views in reason, logic, and evidence, but will in actuality be
using the same propaganda techniques I use.
The other part of me remembers that I went into teaching science not just to
train competent technicians, but also to produce people who will shake up
the world and make it a better place. This part prefers the latter student,
because her rejection of my teaching requires a willingness to challenge
authority (me) and the courage to expose herself to ridicule by taking an
unpopular view. Surely it is such people who are also more likely to
question authority elsewhere as well, to take the side of the underdog and
the powerless against a privileged and powerful establishment?
Students will forget most of the information they get in my classes. The
best that I can hope for is to enable my students to think critically, to
detect propaganda and reject intellectual coercion, even when I am the one
doing it. What troubles me is the assumption by some scientists that it
would be quite admirable if people believed what we say and rejected the
views of those who disagree with us, even though most people have no real
basis for preferring one view over the other. If scientists want the spirit
of true inquiry to flourish, then we have to acceptand even
encouragepublic skepticism about what we say, too. Otherwise, we become
nothing but ideologues.
So I salute you Jamal and Doug, wherever you are, and say now what I should
have said to you then: Listen carefully and courteously to what
knowledgeable people have to say, and be able to use that information when
necessary. Weigh the arguments for and against any issue but, ultimately,
stand up for what you believe. Dont ever feel forced to accept something
just because some expert tells you it is true. Believe things only when
they make sense to you and you are good and ready for them.
Mano Singham teaches in the physics department, and is associate director of
the University Center for Innovations in Teaching and Education, at Case
Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
© 2000 American Institute of Physics
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