Education should be objective

At the core of “Professors’ job is to challenge
popular thought”(Feb. 2) is the idea that the
university’s purpose is to challenge conventional wisdom. If
this truly was the role of higher “education,”
universities would be little short of disasters.

The Socratic method formed the modus operandi of learning in
which hypotheses are challenged until they can withstand any
challenge. In the letters and sciences, the elucidation of truth is
intended to make students better able to perceive the world around
them, to be able to lead in the right direction, to be more
informed citizens. In the sciences and engineering, a better
understanding of the physical world allows students to advance
society’s well-being.

In this objective pursuit of truth, the natural consensus among
university professors and students may well indeed come to disagree
with what’s considered the conventional wisdom of society at
large. Or, alternatively, it may confirm that wisdom. The key is an
objective pursuit of truth, done through dialectic debate within
the university. In Watson’s view, the university is on one
side of a debate against society at large. However, society does
not take a single side.

Instead of learning how to determine truth on their own,
students are told to automatically argue against society. Thus they
lose their ability to lead objectively. While Watson may believe
that such universities would be “havens of independent
thought,” there is nothing less independent or fundamentally
biased than perceiving your job to be the automatic challenging of
popular thought.

It is precisely this bias that causes people to raise concerns
about whether our universities are fulfilling their proper role.
The views of Professor Watson show strongly they are not.

Roberts is an alumnus with a master’s degree in
aerospace engineering.