believe.

 

While Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency, with its “status quo bias,” immensely

harms sound education, it also causes much benefit. For instance, a

near-ultimate inconsistency would be to teach something to others that one did

not believe true. And so, in clinical medical education, the learner is forced

to “see one, do one, and then teach one,” with the teaching pounding the

learning into the teacher. Of course, the power of teaching to influence the

cognition of the teacher is not always a benefit to society. When such power

flows into political and cult evangelism, there are often bad consequences.

 

For instance, modern education often does much damage when young students are

taught dubious political notions and then enthusiastically push these notions on

the rest of us. The pushing seldom convinces others. But as students pound into

their mental habits what they are pushing out, the students are often

permanently damaged. Educational institutions that create a climate where much

of this goes on are, I think, irresponsible. It is important not to thus put

one’s brain in chains before one has come anywhere near his full potentiality as

a rational person.

 

Six: Curiosity Tendency

 

There is a lot of innate curiosity in mammals, but its nonhuman version is

highest among apes and monkeys. Man’s curiosity, in turn, is much stronger than

that of his simian relatives. In advanced human civilization, culture greatly