Chitchat PAP Minister Shanmugaratnam critics Donald Low/Yeoh Lam Keong get a Heads Up

[Sammyboy RSS Feed]

An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Commentary

When academics speak their mind, society benefits


BY LINDA LIM

TODAY PUBLISHED:*4:00 AM, JUNE 16, 2017

Two economists recently made news for social media posts that contained inaccuracies. This prompted a TODAY reader to express concern that academics were making public assertions without taking care to ensure they were not misrepresenting others’ views. Online comments included one that said “they should be dismissed from their jobs” for being wrong.

As an academic myself, I found the comments disturbing — for the misunderstanding they reflect of both the role of academics, and the value of open public discourse, in a free society.

As a fellow economist who has studied Singapore for over 40 years, I am professionally acquainted with both Donald Low and Yeoh Lam Keong, and respect their work, as I do that of other academics who occasionally comment in the public media.

While I have no comment on the two controversies in which Mr Low and Mr Yeoh were embroiled in, I think it is timely to discuss the role that academics can and should play in public discourse.

First, differences of opinion are the norm in, and divergent views a major driver of, the progress of knowledge in human society generally, and in academia in particular.

It is only when individual academics challenge each other, and other actors in society (including governments), that complex issues and unsolved puzzles can be identified and unpacked to their (often temporary) logical conclusion — in the physical as well as social sciences and humanities.

If this were not the case, we might all still believe that the earth is flat, or slavery is good, or climate change is not real.

Academics are required by our profession to be independent thinkers, to raise questions and to challenge established orthodoxies, without which new discoveries would not be made, and our value to society and humanity much diminished.

Second, progress is made when academics’ views are checked by others — which can be done only if they enter the public domain.

Erroneous views disappear in academia when they lose the battle of the force of argument and evidence — though this may not happen in society at large; for example, there are still people who believe that human-induced climate change is not happening.

Note that in many lines of inquiry, there is not necessarily a single right answer, and exploring wrong answers is actually a very effective way to teach critical thinking — as business schools do through case studies, for example.

Third, academics are people too, with personal views on many subjects that may lie outside their professional fields.

And, like others in a democratic society, they have a right to express those views, subject to the same constraints as non-academics.

The rise of social media has given academics, like everyone, the opportunity to express their views in a non-professional context, to a wider public that has the equivalent freedom to challenge those views.

Granted, their status as “experts” may give academics’ words greater power and credibility than those of non-academics, even when they comment on subjects outside their professional expertise, and we should all be mindful of this.

Fourth, academics, being human beings, make mistakes, as other people do, in both professional and personal contexts.

The mere possibility — indeed the likelihood — of error itself should not be a reason to avoid raising important issues or to terminate discussion.

Thus it is unfortunate that Mr Low’s acknowledged mistake, for which he apologised (twice, unusually), appears to have shut down what might have been a productive — if provocative — discourse on the extent to which public opinion should feature in application of the law in a democratic society.

Finally, in most advanced democracies, academics are regularly faulted for insulating themselves in the “ivory tower” and not engaging with society at large.

To counter this, in the United States, groups of academics and even university consortia have established blogs such as Project Syndicate and The Conversation to encourage and enable faculty and other experts to participate more actively in public discourse, including by wider dissemination of academic research.

Having academics engaged in public discourse, including on social media, is a benefit, not a loss, to society at large.

To extrapolate from the two recent isolated incidents in Singapore that academics should not have freedom of expression on social media, and by inference, that no one should express any opinion unless they have done exhaustive data analysis and have the right answer (rather than many possible right answers), is to draw a very disheartening conclusion.

This conclusion is that Singaporeans should deny ourselves the freedom to ask questions of authority, to offer suggestions that might deviate from official narratives, and to make mistakes.

Yet all these freedoms are absolutely essential not just for the advance of knowledge in academia, but also for checks and balances in public policy, and for the risk-taking entrepreneurship and different-thinking innovation that are required for our economic as well as intellectual advancement.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Linda Lim is a Singaporean economist and business professor at the University of Michigan.


Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com.