UNILAG Don Highlights Benefits of Scepticism, Critical Thinking
Uchechukwu Nnaike
A professor of Philosophy at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Douglas Anele, has urged all human beings to imbibe the sceptical attitude.
Anele said this while delivering the first Sceptical Africa Lecture, ‘The Value of Scepticism’, organised by the Critical Thinking Social Empowerment Foundation and the Department of Philosophy, UNILAG.
According to him, to be a sceptic is to request the reason, justification or basis for accepting a particular assertion or belief as true.
“More often than not, such a request is motivated by the suspicion that the reason or justification might be unsatisfactory or inadequate,” said Anele.
He identified politics and religion as the domains in which the sceptical attitude is of utmost importance, saying that Nigerians need to adopt the sceptical attitude towards their leaders and be prepared to interrogate every aspect of the political process.
“In addition, they should not accept lock, stock and barrel the sugar-coated promises of politicians, especially during campaigns since experience has shown that once they get into office, their primary objective is to satisfy their bulimic quest for primitive accumulation,” the professor explained.
He regretted that in Nigeria and other African countries, religion has stifled the capacity for critical thinking and the questioning attitude in the general population, including the educated elite, leading to the mass production of gullible superstitious individuals in all strata of the society.
“As a corollary, religion is the only subject where doubt or challenging what is written in holy books is seen as a taboo or sacrilege that must be discouraged. A significant number of people have unwittingly destroyed, sometimes irreparably, their occupations, personal relationships, and health due to unquestioning adherence to religious dogma”, the don stated.
He said if humanity is to eliminate or reduce to the barest minimum many of the manmade evils destroying the world today, particularly religious superstitions and belief systems that encourage corrosive egoism, hubris, discrimination, mutual distrust, jealousy, hatred, and war, everyone must be encouraged to cultivate the sceptical or critical attitude.
Right from the home, he said children should be taught not to accept any proposition as true unless there is good evidence for it.
Also, teachers should reinforce this attitude at various levels of education by teaching their pupils and students the intellectual and practical advantages of asking probing questions, forming opinions based on adequate evidence, and changing their minds when superior evidence conflicts with their cherished beliefs, according to Anele.
“A healthy dose of scepticism is an indispensable antidote to the venom of blind faith, superstition and dogmatism,” Anele said.
A Critical Thinking Social Empowerment Foundation representative, Dr. Leo Igwe, said the non-governmental organisation was established to promote critical thinking in schools, focusing on primary schools to introduce the teaching of critical reasoning to complement the subjects of verbal and quantitative reasoning.
At the tertiary level, he said the organisation hopes to promote scientific thinking, sceptical rationality and critical examination of paranormal claims.
