Five Minds are better than Two

I bought this book about 2 years ago at Changi Airport. 

I read it, of course, but found it hard to read. You get the ideas but you (I) don't feel moved. 

Then I searched the web this morning and found a paper by the same author with the same title, but edited from a talk he gave in 2008. You don't need to buy or read the book, just read the 18-page paper ... 'cause it makes much more sense and is easier to read.

What are the five minds for the future? 

• The Disciplined Mind
• The Synthesising Mind
• The Creative Mind
• The Respectful Mind, and
• The Ethical Mind

I would tell to just go read the paper, 'cause Howard Gardner does a better job at it then I would. I just want to touch on the last one. BTW, Howard is the famous guy who told the World that intelligence is not merely about being able to score in the exams (sort of). I think even he has lost count, but there's 8 or 9 types of intelligences around.

Have you been following what's going on around the World?

• The German defence minister had to resign - because, 10 years or so after the fact, they discovered that a quarter of his PhD thesis was plagiarised.
• Beyonce, Mariah Carey and other celebrities now think money from the Gaddafi regime is dirty and want to give back the millions they got paid for performing in Libya. (Actually, it was not in Libya, and they didn't know it was finance by Gaddafi's family)
• And the famous London School of Economics has now become infamous because they also took money from Gaddafi's family - and the University and the professor involved now say they are ashamed of their poor judgment
• Closer to home, on facebook no less, a candidate for the recent campus elections has apologised for unethnical use of facebook pages/groups for campaigning. The pages were created for charitable purposes and public service. He has also offered to step down from the charitable cause which he founded.

Several weeks ago, I was at a university workshop and we were discussing giving browny points to lectuers who can draw in funding to the university for things like CSR work. I asked whether there should be a policy on which company or individual we should or should not take money from. Specifically, I said perhaps there should a policy to ban funding from tobacco companies. But one professor declared he has no problems if the tobacco companies wanted to give him funding.

A few years back, I was asked by a lecturer from engineering whether they should accept funding from the Malaysian Plastic Manufacturers - they wanted to give a huge sum (like RM30,000) to fund rcycling activities. Oh, and the money was to go to the school teaching polymer. At that time, I was all gung-ho about "say no to plastic bags" and getting rid of polystyrene on campus. I remember saying if the money is to educate people about recycling, I had no problems. (So, perhaps in the same vein, I should have no problems if the Malayan Tobacco Company wanted to give, say Green Lung, money to tell people that "smoking kills"! What a dilemma. Imagine MTC giving money to help the Cancer Society?)

What about, say, lecturers who are paid to carry out a project, on or outside campus, which at the end of the project, shows that a certain method, technology, or product, has been successful in solving a problem. For instance, lecturers being paid to carry out field tests of new drugs. Or paying respondents to become the subjects of a research study.

If you are appointed as a consultant, and being paid for it, there usually is no ethical dilemma. You are paid for your expert view.

But if you are paid for research, then the alarm bells starts going off. In fact, that's also where independent reviewers zero in on. Out of all the research which supports or "proves" a claim, how many of that is truly independent - i.e. done outside the organisation, paid for by agenices or organisations which have no vested interest in the outcomes?

Should the development of the ethical mind be in our curriculum now?

p.s. Gardner, in discussing the ethical mind also talked about the ability and readiness to forgive. 

p.s.2.  I found this very interesting, and I feel quite balanced, paper about the "myths and science of mudballs" which you should read.