Science meets Humanities: Uniting with CHEP Scientific Society

There was a weekly off, but we had to reimburse for it with a working day of an extra-enjoyed holiday of just passed Eid. The professor proffered to learners that we organize a joint session of three hours to debate a bundle of matters ranging from campus life to ethical values in addition to the curriculum contents (C.C.) of digital electronics (D.D.). The pupils disapproved of the recommendation.

In the unofficial chitchat, they urged me to file an appeal before the lecturer for the cancellation of the session. The professor replied counterintuitively, Let’s evaluate the students’ intellect by offering them two choices: either attend the session or cancel it. Let’s see what we can analyze.

• Most students couldn’t read or comprehend my official message in graduate-level English.
• Few insisted, Urdu me batao (Tell us in the Urdu Language)
• Few spoke: “Tell us in two words, is class canceled or not? They didn’t want to listen to the case at all.

Ironically, pupils were unable to get deep into arguments. Whatsapp Chat’s computation diagnosed that they were revolving in a mapped mindset and were asking continually, Yar Kal ana h ke nhi, bas ye bata do. (Have we come tomorrow or not?) Being a part of this fragile academic congregation, I diagnosed a few issues and wanted to make recommendations.

The schooling system is not arousing learners’ mastery of thinking, analysis, and questioning. First, it is not a co-occurrence that students of Masters in Physics enrolled in Asia’s most prestigious institute cannot get a deep acuity of their everyday ventures. Second, pupils don’t raise objections; debate on rudimentary matters lies in or outside their field. How could it be intense? Readers should have read my column titled; Green Pastures of CHEP on that subject. There, I reasoned that students are incapable of fleeing the dumbfounded curriculum.

The curriculum for a bachelor’s in computational physics is defective. Technically, it is too specialized and offers many overlapping or useless courses. For instance, it has four subjects in general physics alone. Is it impossible to deliver to attendees who have prerequisite knowledge of physics the fundamental concepts of physics in a single course? To move further, it offers two courses on C/C++ programming. However, a subject can cover the content by utilizing advanced coding tools. Critically, the academic council should include more generalized disciplines from humanities and professional ethics by fixing imperfections.

Since the late 1970s, higher education in Pakistan has swung decisively away from the humanities toward subjects biased toward the sciences. Even in HEC, there has been an echo of setting up institutions of specialized STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in engineering, business, medicine, and law. Anjum Altaf, who chairs the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Lums, called this trend a disastrous approach to killing creativity among youth. He demanded that general education be made unrestricted in HEIs. He claimed that the capitalist system observes everything from a materialist perspective. Interested readers must approach his book, published by Folio Books Lahore in early 2022. (Titled: What we get wrong About Education in Pakistan) (Science and Humanities, Pg#102)

Unlike in Pakistan, there has been pushback against this trend toward specialized education elsewhere. American Professor Mark Soluka published an essay titled Dehumanized: When Math and Science Rule Out the School,” in which she argued that: “humanities have lost out to math and science in American schools, and that does not bode well with democracy.” C.P. Snow, a professor at MIT, also raised the case for generalized education in his famous lecture, The Two Cultures. The Report of the Zakri Task Force on Science at the Universities of the Muslim World, foreword by Tan Sri Zakri Abdul Hamid, Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia, suggests that:

The curriculum should be more globular, i.e., contain enough general teaching (humanities, social science, languages, and communication) to ensure that science graduates in the Muslim world are not technically competent at the expense of more comprehensive knowledge. The latter, it is widely agreed, gives scientists and engineers new outlooks, thus more creativity in solving manifold crises, and helps them cooperate and communicate better with colleagues, superiors, officials, and the public. At the very least, curricula for science programs should include humanities courses related to science, e.g., history and philosophy of science.

The central issue is that a meaningful education needs to nurture the ability to think, ask questions, and analyze creativity. There is no reason why math and science cannot teach in ways that fulfill all these objectives. Bertrand Russell was obsessed with mathematics and, at the same time, was one of the most critical minds of the 20th century.

There should be more emphasis on subjects like history and literature in which a question can have many answers. This ambiguity encourages the need to listen to a different point of view, be able to evaluate it based on logic and defend or critique it with coherent argumentation. I wish to draw your attention to a column by Professor Stanley Fish in which he discusses how Milton is used in the West to foster critical thinking. Literature has two salient dimensions: it is a source of aesthetic appreciation and a vehicle for intellectual analysis. Fish believes that Milton’s poetry is good to think about. It’s a workout. You feel great and fit when you have finished.

What do we owe to the future? Worryingly, we are forming scientists void of creativity and intellectually stunned youth for future ages. These graduates will hold decisive posts in public offices and make discordant policies. Then, we should not be sad about mob lynching events like the recent Mardan mishap in the democratic state of Pakistan.

A flicker of hope is burning. We oriented the CHEP Scientific Society at our institute, CHEP, to organize the force of scattered scientists. I admit that many emendations are needed to channel the potential of the CHEP Scientific Society. I have written a lot about the constitutional framework of the CHEP Scientific Society. They are accessible at the Asian Mirror.

Primarily, there is a dire need to amend the existing mindset, which is protecting the status quo. I initiated bringing novel ideas, existing issues, and unique cultures into the mainstream discussion a few months ago. Then a respected colleague hindered me by arguing that it was unrelated to science, and even he mentioned: “Ye issue to saalon se exist karte hain, in ka koi hal nhi.” It is an unhealthy mindset that needs to alter.