Indoctrination

On the Harun Yahya thread, I found this remark: On the Faith Healing thread, there was this: These two little gems, combined with Jaderis’s recent thread’s OP (as well as many other threads and posts here at EvC) have gotten me thinking about the way we teach and learn things, and how we discern “truth” from “untruth.”Indoctrination is something we evolutionists like to spit at creationists and religious fundamentalists quite often: I’ve encountered it at least a couple dozen times since I started here two months ago (I’ve even used it myself once or twice). I wonder how prevalent the practice of indoctrination actually is, and what sorts of teachings and teaching methods would be considered indoctrination.As I understand it, indoctrination is either "exclusive rights to conducting somebody else's education" or "manipulating somebody into subscribing to your opinion" (or even "teaching only one side of a conflict"). I believe it happens quite often (I think it has even happened to me), and that much of what we are taught and how we are taught in church is indoctrination. Consider the following:

• "You must be saved/baptized/etc., or you cannot go to heaven."
• "True happiness only comes through faith on Jesus Christ."
• "Man cannot find the truth on his own: he needs God for everything."

I would also argue that telling children what is right and wrong (or true and false, etc.) without providing a reason is indoctrination. So, telling my son, while he is young and believes everything I say, that Jesus died for his sins, I am technically indoctrinating him (i.e. I am not giving him any alternatives).What are everybody else’s thoughts? Is indoctrination as widespread/common as some of us non-theists think? Who does it? How do you draw the line between “education” and “indoctrination?”

---

Darwin loves you.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

If you say: "This is the answer so don't even question it." then its indoctrination.If you say: "This is the answer, but if you don't believe me then you can find out for yourself here." then its education.

Hi Bluejay, nice topic.The way I see it there are two main differences between education and indoctrination. The first line between the two is drawn in roughly the same place as the line between belief and faith, and it is drawn in the form of evidence.If you teach your kid that something is true (true in a factual sense that is, I'm not talking about beliefs or ideals here) based on your evidence based knowledge that it is true, then that is education.If you teach your kid that something is true based upon shoddy foundations, such as just wanting it to be true, or upon the writ of your favourite holy book, that is indoctrination.The second distinction that I would make is that parents have a grave responsibility to teach kids to think for themselves. I just can't stress enough how important this is. Sooner or later even the most sheltered child will grow up and start to encounter the multitude of beliefs that proliferate in society. If they are not to fall victim to the first set of appealing-yet-false ideas that they encounter, they must be equipped with the ability to think critically.Teaching your kids that your personal world view is the last word in truth is indoctrination and a fairly bad bet in general. Sooner or later they are likely to find out that you were wrong about some aspect of belief. If they have been taught that you are always right, they may lose a lot of respect for you at this point. They may well start to question everything that you taught them.A child who has been taught to think critically and accept that reasonable people may disagree however, will already know that it isn't the end of the world if Mum and Dad got a few things wrong.Unfortunately, I think that some degree of indoctrination is necessary in bringing up kids. It isn't possible to make a two year old understand the science behind combustion or the implications of burn injuries; much better to just tell them to stay away from fires and cookers. By the criteria I laid out above, this would be indoctrination, as would telling a child about Santa or the Easter Bunny, but these seem like unavoidable or harmless indoctrinations. The kind of indoctrination that I am concerned about would be the kind where kids are indoctrinated into beliefs that are going to be a factor in their adult lives, dogmatic beliefs about the world, that are not evidence-based.We are probably all guilty to some extent of indoctrinating our kids with our own beliefs. I think that it behoves us all to try and be honest with kids and avoid indoctrinating them, especially as they mature and start to question the world of their own accord. Younger kids thrive on certainty and stability and often are better served by unequivocal answers. Older kids should be offered non-evidence based beliefs as options, for them to decide the merits of. With more concrete ideas, they should be encouraged to study the evidence for themselves. "Some people think that's true, some don't; what do you think?" seems like a good attitude to me.Like Richard Dawkins, I strongly disapprove of labelling kids as "a Muslim child" or "a Christian child". I think this is ridiculous, immoral and the very essence of harmful indoctrination. Small children are just too young to make informed judgements about these matters; they should be allowed to make such judgements for themselves, as they become mature enough to handle them.

---

Mutate and Survive

Hi, Granny Magda. I take it you have children of your own? I have one: just a five-month-old boy. In a year or two, he'll start asking me questions, and I've had that on my mind for a while: perhaps that contributing to my desire to start a thread like this. Would it be your contention, then, that telling a child "you must be baptized, or you cannot go to heaven" is indoctrination? This is, of course, exactly what I was taught growing up (I imagine it was the same for most of the people here with a Christian background). What parts of religious teachings are not indoctrination, then? Could I get around this by asking "do you believe that?" after each statement?Likewise, how is it different when science textbooks say "dinosaurs lived millions of years ago?" Fourth grade textbooks don't typically include evidence for what they teach. I'm torn on this issue, because I consider the information taught to them to be factual (and it has good evidence for it), but they probably couldn't understand the evidence, even if it was given to them in the textbooks, so I couldn't advocate teaching them the evidence. But, is it indoctrination to say "it will hurt if you touch it?"Edited by Bluejay, : Added "so I coudn't advocate teaching them the evidence."

---

Darwin loves you.

Hi, Catholic Scientist. How do you draw the line? For instance, if someone only says "this is the answer," (without further qualifiers) would you call it indoctrination, education, or neither/both? It isn't pushing one's own beliefs on the listener, but it isn't giving much leeway for alternatives.Also, how often do you think these two extremes happen? (This is a sincere question).Edited by Bluejay, : Punctuation

---

Darwin loves you.

When you are educating someone, they are leaning about stuff, not just stuff. For the purpose of this thread (as an either/or), I would call it indoctrination.In receiving just an answer, they aren't leaning about stuff, they are just learning the answer to a question. I don't consider education to be 'giving leeway for alternatives'. If it is the Truth^TM, then there is no alternative. Also, I don't consider indoctrination to be 'pushing one's own beliefs on the listener'. If my beliefs about stuff is the Truth^TM, I can push them on the listener without indoctrinating them.The key is in providing them information about how to get the answer instead of just saying that the answer is so. I dunno. It depends on how you look at it.I've approached the thread in an either/or sense (black and white, indoctrination or education), however in reality, as usual, everything is most likely some shade of grey.In my formal education there was some indoctrination and in my formal indoctrination there was some education.How often? Its hard to say.

The parts that you can investigate and learn on your own. I would consider that indoctrination. Its to no avail, however, because is the Truth^TM.Indoctrinated falsehoods are the ones that need to be worried about. Sure. And we indoctrinate children all the time fo their own good. "Don't touch that!" We might not explain why they shouldn't and demand that they just listen. That is indoctrination.But when they're young, its too hard to provide them with the why's so we have to rely on indoctrination.

I understand this entirely. So, indoctrinating is giving the answers without explaining, while educating is encouraging a personal search for the answers? I don't know that I necessarily agree with this. I don't think pushing anything on anybody is proper education (according to what I see "pushing" to mean in this context), even if it is true. I think the beauty of Truth^TM is that you don't necessarily need it to be taught to you, despite what religious leaders say: it should be attainable by anybody. I think, like what you've said, that "education" is guidance toward finding Truth^TM, not preaching it. How about your informal education? In college and in science, I don't see a lot of evidence of indoctrination: professors are generally very good about providing students all they need to do their own search for the answer. I'm more concerned about indoctrination outside of formal education: parents, pastors, etc. Those are the people who teach things that they refuse to provide evidence for.

---

Darwin loves you.

Well, I agree that indoctrinated falsehoods are the main problem, and indoctrinated truths are relatively harmless. Still, I think indoctrination is flawed in principle. As an example, take science. The strength of science is the research methodology, not really the results (those are fairly mutable on the local scale, anyway). It is mostly self-correcting, so that it prevents indoctrination, or entrenching of any single method or idea longer than its usefulness or ascertainability. If we lose the scientific method, it doesn't matter what we teach: it isn't science. It's dogma or doctrine: and insisting on it would be "indoctrinating."So, indoctrination is okay as an initial step toward learning the truth? As long as you follow up with the evidence when the kids are old enough to understand, it's okay to "indoctrinate" at a young age? Okay, but isn't "it will hurt you" an explanation? Granted, it's not evidence, but it also isn't just a categorical "No," either: it gives them a reason why, a testable hypothesis.I guess, maybe "indoctrination" is controlled imprintation of a certain worldview on a listener? Under this definition, "it will hurt you if you touch it" is indoctrination.Edited by Bluejay, : dBcodes problem

---

Darwin loves you.

That's my take on it... True, but after a while of them always being right and as the subject matter gets more complicated, you just start taking their word for it instead of doing your own search. (like with cavediver in the cosmology forum) I think I might have used "push" a little too loosely. But, after the Prof. if right so many times and you stop searching for yourself, they'll start to stop providing you with all the means to do the searching (as you start to take their word for it). Its like you gradually bleed into indoctrination. But as long as you're learning the Truth^TM, then it doesn't really hurt. Its hard to say. I mean, if I'm indoctrinated to believe something but then educate myself about it and it turns out to be the Truth^TM, then what was I? Indoctrinated or educated?I feel that I was educated into Christianity but indoctrinated into Catholicism.I stick with Catholicism more for convienience reasons. Not because I believe every little indoctrination (which I found is what a lot of us [Catholics] are doing).

When is the last time, after reading a piece of scientific literature, did you repeat the experiment to reproduce the results?Or do you just take their word for it?What about for experiments that you don't have the equipment to reproduce?Are you indoctrinating yourself with their results? Sure. Why not? Hrm... controlled?Thinking about all the hoosiers raising kids 'round here in Southern Illinois, with all the racism and bullshit that I see being indoctrinated, it really doesn't seem like the parents are controlling the imprintation. People just believe that stuff and their kids learn it from them. The parents are not making some active controlled indoctrination. Beliefs just get passed from generation to generation on their own. I'd still consider this some type of indoctrination (in a non-education sense), but it doesn't seem to be controlled or deliberate.

I don't think appeal to authority is the same as indoctrination. If I'm doing my own research, and using somebody else's research as a backdrop or a precursor, the results of my experiment will provide a commentary on my predecessor's work. If his/her work cannot serve as the basis of future research, it would then have to be re-examined. And, you'd better believe I would do it. But, until there's a reason to disbelieve it, I will (tentatively) accept it. Point taken. Perhaps I should think about the usage of "controlled" here. Could indoctrination just constitute any form of imprintation? Or, should we exclude things that are just absorbed by people from their parents and peers, and not actively driven into them?I would tend (after this last comment, anyway) to restrict the definition of "indoctrination" to a directed, intentional process, and exclude the incidental learning by observation for which children are famous. If you tell your child "you must be baptized," and he or she does it to obey you, this could be considered indoctrination; but, if your child sees other people get baptized, then decides to be baptized because of something they liked about what they saw, how could you call this indoctrination? Isn't that just observational (i.e. evidence-based) learning? I'm going to need somebody else to field this: I can't make up my mind. Another opinion would be appreciated.Thanks for your responses, CS: they've been helpful.

---

Darwin loves you.

I'm gonna go back on what I said, and agree that indoctrination is deliberate.It makes more sense that way.But then, what's the word that describes what I was referring too? The "incedental learning by observation".Growing up in Catholic schools, there was definately some genuine indoctrination. But a lot of it is like how the racism gets passed on in my example.My family and parish did not seem to really be actively and deliberately indoctrinating me, they thought that what they believed was true and I learned some of the beliefs "incidentally by observation". Well, its like you said, as long as you're indoctrinating the Truth^TM, then it doesn't really hurt. Your welcome, I'm glad I could help. It makes sense as I've been both indoctrinated and educated. And they were both formal and legitimate.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

If you ever had to determine, as in a court of law, whether somebody had been actively indoctrinated or just passively absorbant, it would be hard to tell. I spent time as a missionary in Taiwan, and they have a very different opinion of things from us: even the fundamental goals and views of their society are different. How much of the difference is between just environmental influences, and how much is because the older generation tries to control the younger generation (that does go on there)? Actually, you said this. I repeated it in the form of a question. This is the thing about which I'm still unable to make up my mind. It seems to make sense, but it also seems to be a major deviation from the methods that I accept. I guess it feels like I accept it, but that I also feel like I shouldn't accept it.

---

Darwin loves you.