In defence of academic freedom and scientific method

Mail & Guardian

22-05-2025

The deputy director of the department of higher education has said that data produced by her department cannot be used by academics.
Recent inquisitions of, and injunctions to, vice-chancellors — an emerging pastime in this country — beg some debate. Leaving inquisitions for another day, Dr Marcia Socikwa's recent principal-like injunction to vice-chancellors to the effect that universities must stop analysing data produced by the department of higher education and training on research outputs is my focus in this article. It is not inconceivable that this ban is on all department-produced data.
Might her injunction be, at best, an ignorant, benign and inadvertent infringement on the scientific method? Might it be a flagrant violation of academic freedom, at worst? If department-produced data cannot be used like academics would find it appropriate using the scientific method and their academic freedom, why are they produced in the first place? Could funds used to produce these data be deemed wasteful expenditure, then?
Let us leave the apparent wasteful expenditure for another day. Substantively, Dr Socikwa considers certain permutations of variables for truth and excellence, and thus outputs, outcomes and effects as in rankings, improbable, if not impossible. In her view, the data are incapable of germinating any credible information about slices of truth and excellence.
Truth and excellence are measured using quantitative and qualitative data the scientific method requires. Well defined and -determined variables and slices of data aligned with them — proxies for these — are the building blocks. I least expected the (il)logic that permeates her injunction, especially from somebody with a doctorate. To start with, her doctoral research is likely to have been based on the scientific method and data from various sources. Let me rather take her (il)logic to its logical conclusion, using at least three salient and horrifying aspects of it.
First, there is an existential (il)logic in her injunction and arguments. Axiomatically, the scientific method allows a researcher to choose an imperfect and a non-maximal permutation of variables in order to get a slice of truth or excellence. So, in her argument, truth, excellence and rankings can only be determinate if they derive from a perfect and a maximal permutation of variables. They are, otherwise, indeterminate. Assuming this axiom, no information nor conclusions could ever germinate from data derived from an imperfect and a non-maximal permutation of variables. Perhaps, her doctorate deserves to be withdrawn. It is likely to have been based on imperfect and a non maximal permutation of variables; something incredulous to her, to say the least.
Second, her assertions suggest that data produced somehow — even though they cannot really be produced because they are indeterminate as argued above — are just meaningless, if not vacuous. Nothing could possibly be imputed, interpolated or extrapolated from something meaningless and/or vacuous. Her doctoral thesis must surely show she could not impute, interpolate nor extrapolate anything from a data vacuity arising from an imperfect and a non-maximal permutation of variables.
Third, with whatever authority she usurps from whatever higher authority and the Constitution, perhaps, in one fell swoop, she just prohibits universities from analysing any data from the department's chosen permutation of variables. No descriptive nor diagnostic analysis, let alone predictive and prescriptive analysis shall be permitted. Consequently, all research must stop because it is always likely to be based on imperfect and non-maximal permutations of variables. Academic freedom, which allows academia to make hypotheses and back them up with data associated with imperfect and non-maximal permutations of variables, can only be a farce. Perhaps, it is or will be treasonous soon.
The higher education sector must be appalled that a deputy director general for higher education instructs universities to cease data analysis, an integral part of the scientific method? In an unequal society like South Africa's, which is in stupefying dalliance with egalitarianism, proponents thereof of Dr Socikwa's ilk, aver that everyone's performance and under-performance are equally impressive. This society must shun truth, excellence, data and all their proxies because they reveal personal and institutional levels of achievement that differentiate them according to ability and competence. No child will be deemed to be in first or last position in a class, a form of ranking. Even when a 30% pass is not a pass in any subject at any university, it must get any young person qualified for university entry,
nogal
. This is how far our dear country has plumbed the lows.
Invariably and intrinsically, human beings and organisations will always use whatever proxies for truth and excellence and establish some pecking order in whatever space. Whether John Soap likes it or not, ranking and some pecking order human beings are wont to create, rightly or wrongly, are consequential and inevitable once there is data available and it gets analysed.
Inasmuch as some could wish to be considered Einsteins of sorts in their fields, they are and will not. Simply, their intellectual outputs, outcomes and impacts in those fields pale against Einstein's in his. And, If I may use a religious analogy, as much as some could wish to be considered disciples of Christ and apostles, only a few were or could possibly be. In this respect, most Christians are somewhere, though, in the religious and life's pyramid; many at its base.
Even egalitarians, socialists and communists have so far failed dismally to make everything equal. Whether we are in dalliance with egalitarianism or not, whether we like rankings or not, the world continues to judge and rank us.
South Africa is one of the world's worst performing educational systems. International surveys like TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), among many, provide incontrovertible proof. As intimated earlier, excellence is pyramidal. Consequent rankings in academia, rightly or wrongly, with or without maximal permutations of variables are pyramidal, too. Individuals, institutions and countries are at different rungs of the pyramid; many at its base.
Chairman Mao had stupefying dalliance with egalitarianism in China's cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. This era kept China under-developed and poor. Deng Xiaoping's philosophy and a system of meritocracy he introduced in the late 1970s began to extricate China from under-development and poverty. Unwavering focus on scientific and technological advancement as the basis for economic development in China was made inviolable. No wonder, this era produced Jiang Zemin, an electrical engineer, Hu Jintao, a hydraulic engineer, and Xi Jinping, a chemical engineer, as China's successive presidents over the last 36 years, catapulting China to the second best economy in the world today. By the way, even though the UA is the largest economy, as of 2024, the US owed China — and not the other way round — about $760 billion.
If South Africa hopes to achieve scientific and technological advancement and leadership in Africa, something it already has a comparative and a competitive advantage on, academic freedom, the scientific method, meritocracy and excellence cannot be dimmed. The stupefying dalliance with egalitarianism the assault against these emanates from and injunctions towards this end, must be treated with the disdain and contempt they deserve.
Professor Thandwa Mthembu is the vice-chancellor and principal of Durban University of Technology. He writes in his personal capacity.