Learning and the Value of Debate

Abstract

I remember the dismay that I experienced as I encountered the level of contentiousness that seemed to characterize my doctoral classes. It was unnerving to discover that most of my fellow students were given to fairly intense debate over virtually every topic that we studied. Why?, I wondered. I slowly (and somewhat painfully) learned the benefit of debate in learning, especially in the sciences of the mind. Debate sharpens the focus and forces one to clarify his or her position. Recently, I stumbled on a reference to the course taught by cognitive scientist Stevan Harnad at the University of Southampton. The course is called Current Debates in Psychology (Harnad, n.d.). Basically, the course addresses controversial topics, which serve as the basis for the lectures and discussion that take place during the semester. The following six topics are selected from Harnad's 17-topic module in order to support the idea that psychology and its related content areas provide a platform for controversy at its best: * "Shrinks and Cranks." Do therapies-both psychic and somatic-work? What counts as evidence for and against? * "The Devil Made Me Do It." The dark sides of human nature: rape, incest, violence. Does sociobiology explain them? Is it all our evolutionary heritage? * "Me and My Selfish Genes." Is it all about getting power, property, and progeny? * "Or Do We Each Have Minds After All?" The critiques of sociobiology and behavior genetic analysis: psychological, statistical, biologic. * "When Science Tampers With Feelings." Intelligence testing, electroshock therapy, animal experiments: Science and human values. * "Consciousness of Consciousness." Do animals know others have minds? Do children? How can you tell? What is it for? (Harnad, n.d., paras. 5, 7-10, 20) The reader may wish to check out the entire list at http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/ debates.html (Harnad, n.d.), but as I reviewed the list, I could not help thinking of other debates that exist, and I wondered just how long the list could be if it were allowed to approach some degree of completeness. We could take the topics published over the years in Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry (EHPP) and use them to expand the list. As it happened, when I first reviewed Harnad's list, I was also composing this editorial, and thus the connection was drawn. Borrowing Harnad's style, I have noted in the following discussion several additional controversial topics that this issue of EHPP explores. Consider the various controversies that exist within the subjects covered in this issue of EHPP: the mental health of soldiers, the use of antidepressants, confrontation psychotherapy, epilepsy and the media, gifts to therapists, autism, and mental health as an epidemic. Harnad's list is not at all exhaustive, but it will support the point that society benefits from the learning that occurs in debate. WAR AND THE MENTAL HEALTH OF SOLDIERS: ARE THEY EVER PREPARED? As I am writing this, word just came that Osama bin Laden was killed. The relief and rejoicing over the killing of this al-Qaeda leader must also have brought at least some realization to our conscious mind about just where we are with respect to the act of ending the life of another human. Ever since I read Grossman's (1996) book, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, I have been hypersensitive to the act of killing because it is sanctioned in war. I am not campaigning about any liferelated issue. I am simply reporting my own sensitivity to the subject. Therefore, reading Clark Barrett's article on the mental preparation (or lack thereof) that soldiers received, it brought Grossman's thesis back to mind in stark reality. Humans have to be prepared for war and its associated antilife force. In the lead article in this issue of EHPP, "Unarmed and Dangerous: The Holistic Preparation of Soldiers for Combat," Barrett has presented a compelling picture of the issues involved in this preparation. …