On Indoctrination

 Secular activists complain about the indoctrination by religious groups in public schools. First of all, what is indoctrination? According to the Oxford English dictionary, indoctrinate means to “Teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.” Better still, the Oxford Learners Dictionary says “to force somebody to accept a particular belief or set of beliefs and not allow them to consider any others”.

If it is the case, then what about teaching maths, physics, and chemistry in schools? Science teachers normally won’t mention the alternative ideas during the classes. They simply drum the scientific knowledge into students’ brains. Does that amount science teaching to indoctrination? I would say yes if the teacher does not mention alternative theories, or does not mention the historical background on how the equations were discovered. The purpose of teaching is to teach how to think, not what to think.

This leads to the topic of teaching intelligence design theory during the biology classes in US. In some states of US, biological teachers teach that humans were created due to the intelligence design. There is nothing wrong on introducing students to the alternative ideas. What is wrong is that the biological teachers teach students to believe intelligent design is true, and evolution is wrong.

Another good example is geocentric theory versus heliocentric theory. Instead of teaching students that the earth resolves around the sun, isn’t it better to introduce the brief history of Galileo versus the roman catholic church; introduce the pros and cons of both theories, and encourage students to contemplate on which theory is based on evidence, and which theory is based on faith.

Scientific education should not force students to accept the scientific theories without encouraging students to doubt about the legitimacy of the theories. Scientific education is supposed to develop students’ critical thinking, instead of accepting the knowledge uncritically.