Authority is not to be used as a bludgeon to shut down the exchange of ideas. Bob Trivers, evolutionary biologist par excellence, and our mentor in college, once advised us to seek positions in which we taught undergraduates. His reasoning was this: Undergrads do not yet know the field, and so are likely to ask questions that you aren’t expecting, “dumb” questions, or ones imagined to already be settled. When the educator is confronted with such questions, one of three things is likely to be true: Sometimes the field is right, and the answer is simple. Full stop. Sometimes the field is right,
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