I really like this twitter reply to Ben Shapiro (regarding the university)

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Universities are very good at getting students to start thinking critically about things they have always taken for granted

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Is that a coded way of saying social justice?

If so, why is that considered a good thing?

Social justice is just the politics of envy, weaponized on lines of class, gender, and race.

As to the question.

American universities are good at revealing the great truth of the day.

Diverse discussion? New ideas? Not so much.

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Not the best rebuttal, but perhaps a good call. I have the acid reflux going on tonight. Too much holiday food and a bumpy flight.

Bit of a mood, to be honest.

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Do you think professors in the humanities and social science departments do a good job of making clear that what they are teaching is merely opinion that is open for debate?

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I think a university level student should be able to adequately figure this out on his or her own.

Mishaps happen. Stand fast.

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Bit of a mood, to be honest.

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At least you’re being honest there!

Should have down votes for “leftover” oysters. Man, how can you do that?

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Do you think professors in the humanities and social science departments do a good job of making clear that what they are teaching is merely opinion that is open for debate?

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You are starting off with a bit of a loaded question. One that infers what is being taught is somehow on the equivalent playing field of any other interpretation or opinion. Economics is roundly considered a soft science(though I would argue with the emergence and marriage of complex systems science, neural science, and behavioral economics, has helped usher in an era that is elevating the field at a pretty impressive rate), but would you take a professor to task for teaching the necessity of comparative advantage in the face of resource scarcity as a 50/50 idea compared with someone preaching an outdated idea of universal autarky to a major resource deprived nation?

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Furthermore, do you think professors in these soft-science departments do enough to encourage the kids to debate their lecture material?

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Anyone claiming to have a simple answer, a simple narrative, or have it all figured out in a paragraph or less is lying or unaware of the inherent problem of anecdotal evidence.

Personaly I never once had a professor that was unwilling to answer a question of skepticism, and never met a professor that didn't address schisms in a topic where they existed and contained merit.

I remember plenty of heavy debate in Game Theory classes, Public Policy classes, International Relations classes, Ethics classes, and when I got into many Economic topics at the graduate level. Because as one would expect, a lot of people bring in their biases to the classroom, and in a class on a topic like international Relations, you have plenty of people that are 20 year old armchair experts because they listened to Fox News with their Dad growing up or lived in a hippie commune in Nevada.

People that would get triggered when you were assigned to read Marx's critique of capitalism, or an Op-Ed by Dick Cheney and his advisors making the case for a Neo-conservative foreign policy. Which would inevitably lead to discussion. What the professors were always good at was shutting down the nonsense you often see proliferate on message boards, because in a classroom you are in a structured discussion and have more accountability to your words and arguments. Especially in classes that require proofing and standards of citations. But almost every class is spent on giving a person the grounds to argue various POV's. I have a nephew that told me about his gender studies class at LSU this Thanksgiving and he mentioned the debate they had about the gender pay gap. Several students had varying POV and made their cases and the class discussed the merits of the arguments. He said he learned quite a lot.

Do people always carry over the critical thinkings skills they learn and apply them ideally going forward? Who knows, it would certainly be something I would be interested in seeing studies on. My personal experience is certainly mixed. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. You can teach a person the tools of critical thinking, but you can't make them use them.

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Medicine requires much more common sense and inarguably more critical thinking capability than any of those mentioned. Not sure why you group them together. 

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I can speak on what I know, and I know medicine teaches one how to think.

My niece had her college Psychology book laying out while we had Thanksgiving

I opened it and it started with a "Timeline of great events in Psychology." Interesting I thought?

It gave dates then described what happened on those dates for 2-3 pages. Most mentions were primarily of the first woman or first AfricanAmerican to do this or that and how it affected psychology was secondary. LGBT mentioned

Kinda made my stomach churn as I'd just want my niece learning psychology and not what happened coming from someone being either male/female or a race or a transvestite

We're going to graduation of another niece in couple weeks and she's gone from level headed young lady in HS to air head flaming Bernie Sanders Socialist during college. What a waste of money

These are modern day examples I have that are affecting the children of our families negatively I feel.

I'm not impressed with today's college education