Thinking and Creating New Realities

  

Thinking And Creating New Realities

M. Bakri Musa

Excerpt #15 from my book Qur’an, Hadith, And Hikayat:  Exercises In Critical Thinking

 

The clinical trial approach has been adopted by other disciplines beyond medicine, in particular economics. Consider the problem of low educational achievements among poor rural students. Why not try different interventions and analyze the results.

 

         A husband-and-wife team of MIT economists did exactly that–clinical trials–with African school children. One group received free school meals (as in America); another, monetary incentive to encourage parents to keep their children in school (a la Mexico’s Progressa Program); a third, given money but with no conditions attached (UCT–Unconditional Cash Transfers); and last, simple medical intervention of regular deworming.

 

         It turned out that those given regular deworming pills did the best in terms of educational outcome! More remarkable, they maintained their competitive advantage later as adults, as reflected by their superior earnings. Basic human health trumps everything else!

 

         Back in the early 1950s, Malaysian economist Ungku Aziz suggested regular deworming of rural children to improve their school performances. He had previously visited those villages and saw the children’s pallid faces, bloated tummies, and sluggish behaviors. Being a Malay, he was familiar with the kampung environment, physical (as with non-existent sanitary facilities), as well as cultural.

 

         My father read Ungku Aziz’s suggestion in the local papers and decided to give his children regular deworming pills. I do not know how much to attribute my later academic success to those pills, my parents’ guidance, or my teachers’ tutelage. I also do not know whether Malaysian policymakers ever adopted Ungku Aziz’s prescient observation decades before those famous MIT economists.

 

         Today, thanks to the general improved economic status of rural Malay families, their children all now wear shoes. That is the most effective way of managing worm infestations–prevention. No potential side effects too, as with medications!

 

         Back to my parents, woe would be to any of us if we were caught going around barefooted outside. We always had our wooden sandals on, the terompah.

 

         The scientific method, as with “blind” clinical trials, is an aspect of critical thinking. The progress of the West during the last two centuries, and now East Asia during the last half century, is attributed to their adoption of the scientific approach. China’s current progress is not due to some mysterious Confucian ethics, as some are claiming, rather to the country embracing science and technology after the abysmal failure of Mao’s endless revolutions and mindless socialism with their young chanting verses from Mao’s Red Book.

 

         Those exposed to science are less likely to be swayed by emotions or sloppy thinking. It is not coincidental that the least developed parts of Malaysia–Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu–are also the least “scientific.” No surprise also that they are easily swayed by the rhetoric and oratories of their equally insular and science-illiterate religious leaders. Those states also had the highest incidence of Covid-19 cases during the pandemic.

 

         To think critically is not to be judgmental, as the term is generally understood. It is not to belittle or cast doubts on the norms and values of others, especially those who are different from or who disagree with you.

 

         Instead, you ask questions to ascertain the truth or validity of a claim or assertion. Critical thinking is judgmental only in the sense that you abhor or reject those using faulty reasonings or false assumptions to arrive at a conclusion. Critical thinking would lead us towards hitherto new and unimagined realities.

 

         Pramoedya Ananta Toer wrote in his Rumah Kaca (House of Glass), “We all have to accept ‘facts.’ However, if that is all we do, then we will never grow. Man must create new facts lest we risk eliminating the word ‘progress’ in our vocabulary.” 

 

         Creating new facts requires critical thinking.

 

Next:  Thinking Critically Is A Learned Skill