Hakluyt
01-16-2006, 08:00 AM
http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/viewpoints/vp115012006.html
The scientific attitude
DOUGLAS ANELE
Posted to the Web: Sunday, January 15, 2006
A NEW year has just begun, and as I suggested last week, it is an appropriate occasion for critical self appraisal leading to positive behaviour modification. Positive behaviour modification entails the dropping of certain bad habits acquired over the years and picking up good habits that can enhance the quality of life of the individual. It requires a lot of will power, courage and mental discipline to change one’s behaviour, but when a person has successfully done so, it i s expected that he or she would be empowered to live a good life.
Bertrand Russell defined the good life as one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Knowledge is fundamental in all human activities because without it human beings would wallow in the thick, dark, destructive envelop of ignorance. Ignorance-in-action is the most dangerous thing in the world. That is why civilized nations of the world (and Nigeria is yet to attain that level) invest a large amount of resources to educate their citizens. If one looks critically at the condition of human existence in all parts of the world, the person would notice that the quality of life in each country is directly proportional to the quality of human capital in it.
This implies the more qualitative the educational attainments and institutions a country has, the better the quality of human life in that country, the better the level of industrialization, the greater the possibilities of unfurling the latent productive powers of the individuals in it. That is why sensible leaders in serious countries worldwide do not joke with education; they commit a lot of resources into the educational sector in the knowledge that the spin offs and multiplier effects of quality education would far outweigh the investments made.
In Nigeria the situation is different, owing largely to the continuous emergence of myopic, greedy and kakistocratic leaders with little understanding of the critical role good quality education plays in national development.
Our leaders are preoccupied with primitive accumulation, using their positions of authority to acquire wealth they do not need. It is disheartening to note that no Nigerian university made it to the list of the best two hundred universities in the world. I am afraid that no Nigerian university will make it if the list is expanded to five hundred. The reason for this is obvious.
Over the years our leaders have neglected the educational sector such that our primary, secondary and tertiary institutions for a long time now have been producing half baked, semi-literate individuals almost totally bereft of the intellectual and practical skills necessary for survival in a highly competitive, technologizing and globalizing world.
Also within the institutions themselves, especially at the tertiary level, some anomalies have continuously militated against the production of quality graduates who can hold their own amongst their peers from other institutions domiciled in advanced countries of the world. Quota system, ethnicity, the influx of misfits into the academia amongst others are some of the reasons why our universities are crumbling. Maladministration and financial rascality by some university authorities have crippled some universities.
Apart from imbibing the necessary intellectual and practical information necessary for earning a living in one profession or another, an individual ought to acquire certain mental habits and attitudes which are very important for a well-rounded and fulfilled life. Such mental habits and attitudes, in my own estimation, are as important as, if not more important than, the practical information students acquire in the course of their education to become lawyers, engineers, accountants, etc. The mental habits I am referring to constitute the Weltanschaung world views or philosophy of life for the individual.
Each person, whether he or she is aware of it or not, has a concatenation of views, ideas and principles that determine, inform and guide the person’s choices and actions. If a person’s world view is dominated by materialistic concerns, then the person will manifest materialistic attitude. Again, assuming that another person has a predilection for intellectualistic, idealistic or spiritual values, surely his or her actions will reflect such.
Some people have a scientific outlook upon the world, whereas the vast majority of humankind has a superstitious outlook. Certainly, no human being has a completely superstitious or scientific outlook; none is totally materialistic or idealistic in outlook.What is manifested in each person is a blend of the superstitious and the scientific, the materialistic and the idealistic. Majority of Nigerians tend towards the materialistic and the superstitions, although there are some whose world views are fundamentally scientific and idealistic. One night, I was walking towards the main gain of the University of Lagos. As I got to the Chapel, I heard a hysterical voice shouting: "It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be logical, it doesn’t have to be reasonable, but I believe with all my heart!" The voice then shrieked more nonsense which made me to feel sad.
To be continued . . .
The scientific attitude
DOUGLAS ANELE
Posted to the Web: Sunday, January 15, 2006
A NEW year has just begun, and as I suggested last week, it is an appropriate occasion for critical self appraisal leading to positive behaviour modification. Positive behaviour modification entails the dropping of certain bad habits acquired over the years and picking up good habits that can enhance the quality of life of the individual. It requires a lot of will power, courage and mental discipline to change one’s behaviour, but when a person has successfully done so, it i s expected that he or she would be empowered to live a good life.
Bertrand Russell defined the good life as one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Knowledge is fundamental in all human activities because without it human beings would wallow in the thick, dark, destructive envelop of ignorance. Ignorance-in-action is the most dangerous thing in the world. That is why civilized nations of the world (and Nigeria is yet to attain that level) invest a large amount of resources to educate their citizens. If one looks critically at the condition of human existence in all parts of the world, the person would notice that the quality of life in each country is directly proportional to the quality of human capital in it.
This implies the more qualitative the educational attainments and institutions a country has, the better the quality of human life in that country, the better the level of industrialization, the greater the possibilities of unfurling the latent productive powers of the individuals in it. That is why sensible leaders in serious countries worldwide do not joke with education; they commit a lot of resources into the educational sector in the knowledge that the spin offs and multiplier effects of quality education would far outweigh the investments made.
In Nigeria the situation is different, owing largely to the continuous emergence of myopic, greedy and kakistocratic leaders with little understanding of the critical role good quality education plays in national development.
Our leaders are preoccupied with primitive accumulation, using their positions of authority to acquire wealth they do not need. It is disheartening to note that no Nigerian university made it to the list of the best two hundred universities in the world. I am afraid that no Nigerian university will make it if the list is expanded to five hundred. The reason for this is obvious.
Over the years our leaders have neglected the educational sector such that our primary, secondary and tertiary institutions for a long time now have been producing half baked, semi-literate individuals almost totally bereft of the intellectual and practical skills necessary for survival in a highly competitive, technologizing and globalizing world.
Also within the institutions themselves, especially at the tertiary level, some anomalies have continuously militated against the production of quality graduates who can hold their own amongst their peers from other institutions domiciled in advanced countries of the world. Quota system, ethnicity, the influx of misfits into the academia amongst others are some of the reasons why our universities are crumbling. Maladministration and financial rascality by some university authorities have crippled some universities.
Apart from imbibing the necessary intellectual and practical information necessary for earning a living in one profession or another, an individual ought to acquire certain mental habits and attitudes which are very important for a well-rounded and fulfilled life. Such mental habits and attitudes, in my own estimation, are as important as, if not more important than, the practical information students acquire in the course of their education to become lawyers, engineers, accountants, etc. The mental habits I am referring to constitute the Weltanschaung world views or philosophy of life for the individual.
Each person, whether he or she is aware of it or not, has a concatenation of views, ideas and principles that determine, inform and guide the person’s choices and actions. If a person’s world view is dominated by materialistic concerns, then the person will manifest materialistic attitude. Again, assuming that another person has a predilection for intellectualistic, idealistic or spiritual values, surely his or her actions will reflect such.
Some people have a scientific outlook upon the world, whereas the vast majority of humankind has a superstitious outlook. Certainly, no human being has a completely superstitious or scientific outlook; none is totally materialistic or idealistic in outlook.What is manifested in each person is a blend of the superstitious and the scientific, the materialistic and the idealistic. Majority of Nigerians tend towards the materialistic and the superstitions, although there are some whose world views are fundamentally scientific and idealistic. One night, I was walking towards the main gain of the University of Lagos. As I got to the Chapel, I heard a hysterical voice shouting: "It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be logical, it doesn’t have to be reasonable, but I believe with all my heart!" The voice then shrieked more nonsense which made me to feel sad.
To be continued . . .