Lecturer Rob Carpenter in the News! 9 Ways to Create an “Intellectually Humble” Classroom
University labs and classrooms have been among the greatest transmitters of human knowledge—and error—in history. On the one hand, the theory of general relativity, the computer, the internet, the universal declaration of human rights, and many other world-changing ideas were born in, and have been taught through, our universities. On the other, scientific racism and eugenics, sexist psychological and evolutionary “research” about the supposed innate inferiority of women, sophisticated justifications of and defenses for barbaric colonialism, numerous inaccurate medical theories (that plagues were caused by bad air and not germs, for instance), and that the Big Bang never happened were also imparted as unquestioned gospel to generations of students. These misconceptions went on to contribute to unnecessary social and political ills as well as to human misunderstanding and untold suffering.
