How does one tell the difference between teaching and indoctrination?
Every fundamental hard science started controversial. In some circles, they still are. Do we stop teaching heliocentrism because it's the devil's work? Who decides?
Every fundamental hard science started controversial. In some circles, they still are. Do we stop teaching heliocentrism because it's the devil's work? Who decides?
Indoctrination is the opposite: providing stock answers and refusing to elaborate. Using social pressure and authority to shame students and block their questions. Its purpose is to instil deference and obedience -- to enlist more soldiers for war -- not to enrich the spirit.
When students are going to school and leaving with improved skills, life experiences, networks, and more critical thinking...it's teaching. When students leave with a chip on their shoulder to disrupt the United States and attack its institutions and reputation and even cause problems, without any actual skill acquisition or increase in critical thinking, it's indoctrination.
I think we're deluding ourselves if we think we can give people critical thinking and not have them question the consequences of colonialism, or slavery, or the industrial revolution, or manifest destiny, or homeland security, and which of those consequences should be kept and which should be torn down.
(There's a pretty good book on this subject, actually: among other things it touches on, The Myth of the Rational Voter [2007, Bryan Caplan] notes the stark difference in voting habits among those with and without a college education. Does that mean all college education includes indoctrination, or does it mean learning critical thinking causes people to think critically to similar conclusions, or perhaps both? And at another level of abstraction: if you're a policymaker and you want people to vote in the way they tend to do when not college educated, aren't there incentives to cast education itself into doubt?)
There is no reason to talk about anything besides the class, in the class.
Can we mention Einstein in physics 101? His faith and politics is too far, surely, but are they really entirely unrelated to his science? What about Heisenberg? Bohr? Oppenheimer?
One could mention all above physicists and more in Physics class but talking about how Einstein was misogynist would not be topic for Physics class.
Einstein as a misogynist might not be appropriate, but how about as a Jew in Nazi Germany? Is the phrase "God does not play dice with the universe" indoctrination? Can we discuss the Solvay conferences? The first Solvay conference is likely the most important gathering of scientists in modern history. The third? Indoctrination.
What about Galileo and the church?
I guess my point is that history is messy, and not scientific. Does this mean we should remove dates from science classes?
"Die Quantenmechanik ist sehr achtung-gebietend. Aber eine innere Stimme sagt mir, daß das doch nicht der wahre Jakob ist. Die Theorie liefert viel, aber dem Geheimnis des Alten bringt sie uns kaum näher. Jedenfalls bin ich überzeugt, daß der nicht würfelt."
There are a number of different translations, but one is:
Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.
It is relatively easy to understand both the context and meaning of what Einstein said, especially if you read his numerous other works. The objection to some of the key underpinnings of Quantum Mechanics was something he mentioned a number of times.
They key here is that you can explore and understand what Einstein was talking about without digging deep into the meaning of a god, or his view of religion. The concepts of Quantum Mechanics are complicated enough to keep any undergrad or grad student busy for a lifetime.
But, in the context of this thread... Is it physics? I'd say no! It's metaphysics at best and really more along the lines of history and philosophy. That would make it indoctrination by many of the arguments in this thread! (I intend this to be a somewhat uncharitable interpretation.) My argument is simply that classification is hard.
And again, this should be one of the easier field to classify! To bring it back to my linguistics example, can you imagine trying to discuss African American Vernacular English without leaving the confines of linguistic theory?
Then two cities got wiped off the map in intentional runaway nuclear reactions.
A whole generation of physicists learned the hard way that if you don't make hard sciences at least a little like those types of things, you may lack the framework to realize when you're being co-opted into a machine that kills... That "pure" science takes huge moral risks if it believes itself to be detachable from the world it is trying to explore.
Credit where credit is due, they responded to the new challenge (https://pugwash.org/).
p1 - treat physics as a discipline p2 - two cities get wiped off the map
There are many more variables that are relevant here, and in times of justified war like WW2 things are different. Consider a war scenario where your physicists spent all their undergraduate study time learning about identity politics and writing political preambles on their papers in order to get their papers even looked at.