Some Summer Reading: Closed Classrooms, AI, and Frankenstein

 * An email I sent to a Christian Professors Group I am part of--talking about some of recent reading I've done.

It's almost time for the new semester to start!  Who's ready?!

I hope your summer is going well.  I've been able to read a number of good books and articles.  Here are some interesting items of note:

1.  An interview from The Chronicle of Higher Education--"These Scholarly Topics Are Hotly Debated. So Why Don't Syllabi Reflect That?" (July 22, 2025).  The interview is with the authors of the working paper, "Closed Classrooms? An Analysis of College Syllabi on Contentious Issues."  The authors examined the syllabi of courses on controversial topics such as (1) racial bias in the American criminal justice system, (2) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and (3) the ethics of abortion.  The authors are interested "in whether students are exposed to a broad spectrum of the most reputable and informed thinkers, which includes professors and, in some cases, well-regarded intellectuals and writers outside of academia."  They examined key thinkers in the above areas--often from a more left-leaning perspective--and noticed that when these thinkers were used in various classes they were very often not paired with responsible counter-voices to balance the teaching perspective.  They write:

To varying degrees, we found strong asymmetery: While some of the most important voices like Alexander's, Said's and Thomson's are routinely taught, their critics are not generally assigned along with them.  And when we flip the analysis to see how often the critics are assigned along with the canonical texts, we find that they generally are taught together.  In other words, in the compartively rare cases when these critics are assigned, they are apparently taught to widen the conversation, not cement a different orthodoxy.  That suggests a minority of professors do teach these intellectual controversies.

 

On the whole, though, it seems that professors generally insulate their students from the wider intellectual disagreement that shape these important controversies.  That is the academic norm.  This is a problem we must collectively remedy."

I took a special interest in this article since I do teach on the ethics of abortion and I do teach both sides.  I have my students read the famous Judith Jarvis Thomson essay in defense of abortion and I pair it with pro-life philosopher Francis Beckwith's article critiquing Thomson's argument.  Although in the minority, it felt good to be among the forces in higher education promoting critical thinking!

2.  A recent article over at Mind Matters (a good website I encourage you to check out!), Jeffrey Funk has a link-filled article entitled, "AI in Education: Is the System Being Gamed--or the Student?" (July 30, 2025).  Here is just one set of comments relevant to what is happening to our students: 

Using generative AI as a friend or therapist is also becoming popular across all ages. A survey of 1,060 teens aged 13 to 17 across the US ‘found that around three in four kids have used AI companions,” “with over half of surveyed teens qualifying as regular users of AI companions, meaning they log on to talk to the bots at least a few times per month.” (Futurism)

 

The results are not good. “A troubling number of ChatGPT users, both young and old, are falling into states of delusion and paranoia following extensive use of the OpenAI bot.” Perhaps they are driven by the tech’s sycophantic behavior or its penchant for being flattering, agreeable, and obsequious to users. These chats can “culminate in breaks with reality and significant real-world consequences, which include the dissolution of marriages and families, job loss, homelessness, voluntary and involuntary stays in mental health facilities,” and death. (Futurism)

 

More serious uses of large-language model (LLMs) also have their dark side. Writing articles for the Internet with them has produced what some people call the “enshittification” of the Internet or “slopaganda.” The Financial Times says: from enshittification to slop and slopaganda, many people are claiming that the internet is on the decline, and generative AI is contributing to that decline. “The last bits of fellowship and ingenuity on the web are being swept away by a tide of  so-called artificial intelligence.” Some are also worried that bad actors can use ChatGPT to produce mass postings on almost any topic and any political persuasion to foment dissent in America. (Wall Street Journal)

 

3. Lastly, I'm currently reading (re-reading, really, since I read it over 30 years ago!) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.  I'm only about a third into it but it is fascinating to see the pride and hubris of Dr. Victor Frankenstein--a trait not unknown to some of our contemporary scientists who work in Artificial Intelligence!

So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein, more, far more, will I achieve: treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.

Here the quest takes him to consider the resurrection of dead bodies and immortality through science: (transhumanism, anybody?)

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.  A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me.  No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.  Pursuing these reflections, I thought, that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.

 

 These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour.

What have you been reading?  Let us all know--remember to "reply all."

Teaching and the Quest for Classroom Neutrality

* A recent email I sent out to a Christian Professors Group I am part of:

Recently I was at a Starbucks doing some reading.  I read three interesting pieces that are all, in one way or another, relevant to our roles as Christians in higher education.

1. "Conservative(s) Teaching and Classroom Neutrality" by Christopher Tollefson

2.  "Can 'Fear Equity' Revive Campus Free Speech?" by Lee Jussim and Robert Maranto

3.  "The Radicalization of the American Academy" by Lee Jussim, et. al. 

Here I want to focus on the first short article by Tollefson.  He addresses the issue of the divide between those who attempt to use the classroom for progressive advocacy and, on the other hand, those who promote complete neutrality on the professor's behalf.  Tollefson asks us to consider "a third way to approach as least some difficult issues in the classroom, one that departs from the strategy of neutrality."  Tollefson gives his experience as a template.  In his medical ethics classes he will assign his own work defending the humanity of the human embryo along with argumentation against the destruction of embryos.  His students know where he stands on this controversial issue.  He also assigns readings from diverse perspectives but his students know that their professor is not "neutral" on this issue.  He speaks to the value of this pedagogy:

First, what is modeled in the classroom is not simply the presentation of arguments and critical thought, but the presentation of arguments and critical thought in defense of what is believed to be true.  And this matters.  Classroom neutrality can be important and appropriate in various ways, but it risks what neutrality-based approaches to politics risk: that it suggests to students that there is no truth, only arguments, and that their presentation and criticisim on all sides is as much an intellectual game as anything else.

 

 But that is not where we want our students to end up: we want them to argue for the sake of getting at, and defending, the truth.  And while this can be encouraged by who takes no side in the argument, it is shown by one who defends a position because, as he says, he believes it to be true.

 

 Second, what is likewise modeled and shown is that the project of defending what is believed to be true can be done in a good spirit, with goodwill, and with respect for all participants.  When this approach is successful (I am not saying that I am successful in it!) then intellectual opponents will have become as good intellectual friends as intellectual allies will be.

I have actually taken this approach in my Philosophy 101 classes.  About week 6 or 7 my students read an article I wrote (based on a public presentation I gave at GCC) on "Why Science Needs God." After reading this, the students know I believe in God and am arguing for a certain relationship between science and religion.  I have the students evaluate the paper and tell them that some of the best papers I have received on this assignment are from those who have disagreed with me.  I also tell them that there is a problem with the paper that has been pointed out by students--and that I agree with the criticism!  

I would encourage you to read Tollefson's piece and see how it might affect your classroom presentations.  Do you agree or disagree with his thoughts?  How do you (or, how could you) take Tollefson's approach in your classroom with your content?

One last thing... last semester I wrote a piece for the GCC CTLE's blog.  It looks at some of the issues from the above essays.  I tried to create the space for increased conversations by those who are ideologically and philosophically divided.  Take a look and see what you think--"Crossing Cultural Divides with 'Adversarial Collaboration'"

Crossing Cultural Divides with "Adversarial Collaboration"

 * From an educational blog: Write 6x6

As we head into the future, there are many topics that cry out for consideration within the context of higher education.  One particular urgency is how our campuses will handle the increasing challenges of the political and ideological conflicts that continue to divide Americans.  Academics are not immune from this deepening division.  A recent article in Perspectives on Psychological Science articulates some of the damage done among academics in our culturally divisive moment but it also mentions a way forward.

Cory J. Clark is the lead researcher for “Taboos and Self-Censorship Among U.S. Psychology Professors.” 

This article details the results of a 2021 study of qualitative interviews of psychology professors regarding their beliefs and values.  These professors were asked to give their assessment to ten “taboo conclusions” by describing, “How confident are you in the truth or falsity of this statement?”  A small sample of the questions include:

• “The tendency to engage in sexually coercive behavior likely evolved because it conferred some evolutionary advantages on men who engaged in such behavior.”

• “Biological sex is binary for the vast majority of people.”

• “Racial biases are not the most important drivers of higher crime rates among Black Americans relative to White Americans.”

• “Transgender identity is sometimes the product of social influence.”

The participants were also asked:

• “If the topic came up in a professional setting—for example, at a conference—how reluctant would you feel about sharing your beliefs on this topic openly?”

• “Should scholars be discouraged from testing the veracity of this statement?”

The researchers documented that “for nearly all taboo conclusions, scholars who believed the statements were true self-censored more.”  This was due to the fear of consequences; professors were concerned about (1) being attacked on social media, (2) being ostracized by peers, and (3) being stigmatized or labeled pejorative terms.

A recent Inside Higher Ed/ Hanover Research survey further documents this tendency.  The researchers state: “The feeling that it has become riskier to speak freely has led many faculty to censor themselves.  Nearly half of respondents somewhat or strongly agreed that they were refraining from extramural speech due to the situation on their own campus and/or the broader political environment. More than a third said they weren’t communicating with students in or out of class about things they previously might have.”

This tendency toward fearful self-censorship is not good for the academic environment.  It is here that Clark, et al. articulate one way forward using the concept of adversarial collaborations.  They write:

“Adversarial collaborations might reduce interpersonal conflict by turning adversaries into sparring partners who improve one another’s science.  Adversarial collaborations can also reduce the use of inflammatory modes of dispute resolution—such as straw-manning and ad hominem attacks—that contribute to a needlessly hostile scientific climate and may contribute to professors’ fears of social sanctions.”

Even on heavily contested social and cultural issues, those on divergent sides can work together and in the act of adversarial collaboration can overcome unhealthy biases. 

As we consider adversarial collaborations it is helpful to find models of this.  I was recently invited to present a talk at ASU on the topic of abortion and the personhood of the fetus.  I began my lecture with a reference to the book Civil Dialogue on Abortion by Bertha Alvarez Manninen and Jack Mulder, Jr. 

Manninen and Mulder are long-time friends who find themselves on opposite sides of one of the controversial conflicts today.  They manifest a high-level of argumentation with a simultaneous level of evident respect.  They outline four needed traits and dispositions needed for fruitful discussion:

• Humility

• Solidarity with our conversation partners

• Avoiding dismissive words and phrases

• Leading with what we are for instead of what we are against

They also list out some basic rules for dialogue when they write:

“Thus, we might say that civil discourse occurs when people of sincere conviction (a subjective condition) who are willing (also subjective) to submit their opinions to the (metaphorical) court of argument and rational discourse (this is at least more objective in the sense that we can agree on certain logical rules that can be articulated for any debate) are therefore invited to the table of conversation and not disinvited unless they refuse to make their case in such a fashion.”

Our students and the larger culture desperately need to this kind of dialogue on critical and controversial issues modeled for them.  The future of education—and our culture—depends on this!

Francis Schaeffer on the Point of Tension

 * A selection from Francis Schaeffer on the "point of tension" in every person's thinking.

Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There in Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway, 1990 [1968]).

 

 

Let us remember that every person we speak to, whether shop girl or university student, has a set of presuppositions, whether he or she has analyzed them or not.  The dot in the diagram represents a person’s non-Christian presuppositions; the point points to what would be the logical conclusion of those non-Christian presuppositions.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

If a man were completely logical to his presuppositions, he would come out at the line on the right.  If he arrived there in thinking and life, he would be consistent to his presuppositions.

 

But, in fact, no non-Christian can be consistent to the logic of his presuppositions.  The reason for this is simply that a man must live in reality, and reality consists of two parts: the external world and its form, and man’s “mannishness,” including his own “mannishness.”  No matter what a man may believe, he cannot change the reality of what is.  As Christianity is the truth of what is there, to deny this, on the basis of another system, is to stray from the real world:

                                                                                                           

Every man, therefore, irrespective of his system, is caught.  As he tries intellectually to extend his position in a logical way and then live within it, his is caught by the two things which, as it were, slap him across the face…. Non-Christian presuppositions simply do not fit into what God has made, including what man is.  This being so, every man is in a place of tension.  Man cannot make his own universe and then live in it. (132)

…

Torn by Two Consistencies

…

Every person is somewhere along the line between the real world and the logical conclusion of his or her non-Christian presuppositions.  Every person has the pull of two consistencies, the pull towards the real world and the pull towards the logic of his system.  He may let the pendulum swing back and forth between them, but he cannot live in both places at once.  He will be living nearer to one or to the other, depending on the strength of the pull at any given time.  To have to choose between one consistency or the other is a real damnation for man.  The more logical a man who holds a non-Christian position is to his own presuppositions, the further he is from the real world; and the nearer he is to the real world, the more illogical he is to his presuppositions. (133-134)

…

 

The Tensions Are Felt in Differing Strengths

We have said that every person, however intelligent or lacking in intelligence, has stopped somewhere along the line towards the consistent conclusion of his own position.  Some people are prepared to go further from the real world than others, in an attempt to be more logical to their presuppositions.  The French existentialists Camus and Sartre exhibited this:

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Sartre said that Camus was not sufficiently consistent on the basis of their mutual presuppositions.  The reason for this was because Camus never gave up “hope,” centered in random personal happiness, though it went against the logic of his position.  Or, as was stated when Camus received the Nobel prize, because he never gave up the search for morals, though the world seemed to be without meaning.  These are the reasons why, of the two, Camus was more loved in the intellectual world.  He never go the real world sorted out, as we have seen from his book The Plague, but he was nearer to it than Sartre.

 

Sartre was correct to say that Camus was illogical to their presuppositions; but, as we saw before, he could not be consistent either.  When he signed the Algerian Manifesto, taking a position as though morals have real meaning, he too was being inconsistent to his own presuppositions.  Thus Sartre was also in tension.

 

Each person may move up or down the line at different times in their lives, according to their circumstances, but most people more or less stabilize at one point.  Every non-Christian, whether he is sleeping under the bridges in Paris or is totally bourgeois, is somewhere along the line.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

This is not an abstraction, for each of these persons is created in the image of God, and thus is in tension because within himself, there are things which speak of the real world.  Men in different cultures have different standards for morals, but there is no one who does not have some moral motions.  Follow a modern girl through her day.  She may seem totally amoral.  But if you were to get to know her you would find that, at some point, she felt the pull of morals.  Love may carry different expressions, but all men have some motions of love.  The individual will feel this tension in different ways—with some it will be beauty, with some it will be significance, with some it will be rationality, with some it will be the fear of nonbeing. (134-135)

Moral Persuasion and Moral Education: Thoughts from J. Daryl Charles

 * From J. Daryl Charles' book The Unformed Conscience of Evangelicalism: Recovering the Church's Moral Vision (IVP, 2002).

"Cultural critic Os Guinness* identifies what he believes to be strategic or 'tactical' errors that are recurring in evangelical attempts to develop a 'public witness.'  Evangelicals, he notes, have frequently concentrated their efforts in domains that are peripheral to society rather than central.  Correlatively, they have relied heavily upon populist strengths and rhetoric rather than addressing 'gatekeepers' of contemporary culture.  Moreover, and critical to the viability of the evangelical social ethic, we have sought to change society through political and legal means rather than contending in the marketplace of ideas at the intellectual level.  Thus, evangelicals have tended to rely on 'a rhetoric of protest, pronouncement, and picketing' rather than on moral persuasion.

"While there is nothing inherently wrong in a 'rhetoric of protest'--indeed there are seasons in which the Christian community is called to such a strategy--there is doubtless something to be said for Guinness's concern.  The relative inattention to winning a person's mind and way of thinking, an inattention to winning a person's mind and way of thinking, an inattention that tends to depreciate a long-term strategy of building relationships and addressing moral-philosophical complexities, has lasting results that are counterproductive to evangelicals' mission to the world.

"If one argues that moral persuasion is necessary in society, one must also assume that the church has undertaken the task of moral education."  (pp. 226-227)

* Charles is quoting Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don't Think and What to Do About It (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1994), pp. 17-18

Cultural Change: Thoughts from J. Daryl Charles

* Some thoughts from J. Daryl Charles in Between Pacificism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition (IVP, 2005): 

"To attempt to change culture by merely changing its laws is at best cosmetic.  Our priority is to change the hearts and minds of people.  This is slow, arduous work.  That is why evangelism proper (in the narrow use of the term), while important, is only a small part of what Pope John Paul II has called 'evangelization' of culture.  That is, we must begin to reseed culture from the ground up, as it were, training and educating our own in terms of broader Christian worldview thinking so we are prepared to impart values to broader culture.  If we resist or ignore long-term efforts to educate and penetrate culture by changing the way people think, no amount of 'godly legislation'--or evangelism, for that matter--will ever be able to change culture at root.  It will be the equivalent of pouring Roses Lime Juice on cancer." (p. 139)

Cultural Change: Thoughts from J. Daryl Charles

* Some thoughts from J. Daryl Charles in Between Pacificism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition (IVP, 2005): 

"To attempt to change culture by merely changing its laws is at best cosmetic.  Our priority is to change the hearts and minds of people.  This is slow, arduous work.  That is why evangelism proper (in the narrow use of the term), while important, is only a small part of what Pope John Paul II has called 'evangelization' of culture.  That is, we must begin to reseed culture from the ground up, as it were, training and educating our own in terms of broader Christian worldview thinking so we are prepared to impart values to broader culture.  If we resist or ignore long-term efforts to educate and penetrate culture by changing the way people think, no amount of 'godly legislation'--or evangelism, for that matter--will ever be able to change culture at root.  It will be the equivalent of pouring Roses Lime Juice on cancer." (p. 139)