STEM needs to find its roots

Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
Learning Curve: Perspective
New Sunday Times - March 6, 2016

THE acronym STEM that stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics does not sit well with me. It is the latest evolution from merely science, to science and technology (S&T), and science, technology and innovation (STI).

Each time the acronym changes, it becomes more and more utilitarian in nature with STEM fashioned for greater competitiveness to enhance economic development. It is a far cry from what science once was, when it was understood as “natural philosophy” to decipher nature and natural phenomena. The basic intention was to “explore” (discover) rather than “exploit” (squander) as it turned out to be later. The latter become mainstream without any sense of guilt, devoid of the knowledge of philosophy and history which is the current persuasion at all levels. “Global warming” and “climate change” are the outcomes.

Indeed, now you would be hard-pressed to find scientists who are well versed in the philosophy of science or the history of science. Knowledge without the benefit of these two aspects is short of what it is intended to be, analogous to a journey without road maps, always groping for direction. Interestingly, prominent scientists in a recent article, Putting the Ph back into the PhD, admitted that while “science remains humanity’s best hope for solving its most vexing problems”, they opined: “Rather than thinking big, the current system encourages students to think small. It provides potent incentives for behaviours that are sometimes detrimental to not only scientists but also science and, by extension, to society as a whole.” It means that a “doctoral” degree — like the sciences — void of philosophical thinking is no longer tenable. “We need to address how students learn to be scientists to prevent their indoctrination into the very narrow culture of one particular field,” noted the article.

This resonates well with the situation in Malaysia, where science is rushed through as a tool to create material wealth. Words such as “innovation”, “entrepreneurship” and “human capital” have been bandied around and linked to STEM to give it the (false) “scientific” feel. Yet the question, “Why does calculus need ‘limits’?”, drew many blinks. Calculus, in this instance, is dogma, a tendency that was beginning to grip science as a whole, as argued by some. STEM, which is figuratively “rootless” (read: not centrally rooted in philosophy and values), differs greatly from the social sciences and humanities, extracting a grave toll. But nothing can be as a grave as latest findings by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences which challenge the prevailing mindsets of the proponents of STEM.

The institute warned that radical theology spread freely on Indonesian “secular university campuses” with “students from science and engineering majors more susceptible to infiltration”. Those who study “hard sciences” (read: STEM) are more at risk compared to those reading “soft sciences” including the social sciences, humanities and philosophy. While the latter is found to be more resistant according to Indonesian Institute of Sciences senior researcher, Anas Saidi, the former is more “easily infiltrated as they don’t think religious understanding should be discussed. It’s something to do with their scientific background that affects how their minds work”.

On the home front, we need to reflect on the death of Mohd Najib Hussein who was killed in December last year after fighting alongside the so-called Islamic State (IS) in southern Philippines. The 37-year-old electrical engineering graduate who turned “bomb-maker” was identified as one of the emirs of the group linked to Abu Sayyaf that swears allegiance to IS. Filipino sources claimed that Mohd Najib was involved in running an “Improvised Explosive Device, Small Medium Enterprise” factory in the area of the Abu Sayyaf. He was also a key figure in the Black Flag cell led by University of Malaya professor, Dr Mahmud Ahmad alias Abu Handzalah, 36, who hid out with the Abu Sayyaf in southern Philippines. A father of five, Mohd Najib, was Mahmud’s right hand man.

In the early 2000s, another Malaysian, the late Dr Azhari Husin who worked as a lecturer at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in Skudai, Johor was similarly implicated. A gifted British-trained engineer and author of books on multiple regression analysis, he became Jemaah Islamiah’s “master bomb-maker” during the 2002 Bali bombing. The late Noordin Mohammad Top, a mathematician and geologist, who received a Bachelor of Science degree from UTM in 1991, was regarded as a “mastermind” and “the leader of al Qaeda in Southeast Asia”.

These brief anecdotal examples are sufficient to raise interest in the findings of the Indonesian researchers. Indeed, a conversation with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Institute of Ethnic Studies director Distinguished Professor Shamsul Amri Baharuddin indicated similar findings in Malaysia involving other faiths too. Unfortunately such conversations are drown by the STEM-driven bean-counting activities such as the number of high-impact-factor papers, research-based income-generation activities, and patents and copyrights with Key Performances Indicators as measures of excellence and success. As reiterated in the same article: “Attempts to create well-rounded scientists have been thwarted by an increasingly demanding, grant-focused environment. As a result, we channel students into already narrow and highly specialised areas, teaching them more and more about less and less. One sad consequence is the inability of many scientists to talk about their work and ideas in a way that’s comprehensible by voters, politicians and even scientists in other fields.”

Science needs to find its roots once again because STEM is no longer able to bridge meaningful dialogue with religions, ethics, arts-oriented disciplines such as humanities, and management. STEM must be widened to allow for the streaming of religions, ethics, arts and management as its integral support — with a redefinition as STREAM. While there can be many suggestions as to the handling of the processes of “radicalisation” on a piecemeal basis, it is imperative that the issues of “rootless” STEM be addressed first to prevent the “indoctrination into the very narrow culture of one particular field” as well-argued in the article. “Science has been so successful over the past few centuries that it should be sufficiently secure to return to its philosophical roots.”

Of late, recent Higher Education Ministry workshops have recognised the need for philosophy in STEM. So too bodies such as the Academy of Sciences, Malaysia which had the foresight to organise an international conference on how to inject soul into research and development last year. All these augur well for reconstructing STEM collaboratively with the social sciences and humanities counterparts.