Woke is finally catching up with the sciences as mathematicians in British universities are told by a standards body to “decolonise” the curriculum. John Armstrong has written about the latest gobbledegook in the Spectator.
This autumn, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) – an independent charity which reviews university courses – launched a consultation that urged universities to teach a “decolonised view” of mathematics.
It is easy when you work at a university to roll your eyes at this sort of thing and play along. But as a mathematics academic, I felt it was my duty to challenge this unscientific proposal. This week I published an open letter to the QAA criticising their consultation and was delighted that a number of high-profile professors and mathematicians from minority groups agreed to add their signatures.
The fact is that colonialism is irrelevant to the validity mathematics. The Mayan civilisation was doing sophisticated mathematics in the Americas long before Christopher Colombus arrived on the continent.
So where does the idea of ‘decolonising’ maths come from? The academic theory of decoloniality states that as well as colonising the world physically, Europeans have dominated the world by promoting the “European paradigm of rational knowledge“.
The irony is that this statement seems itself to be racist. There is nothing particularly European about rational knowledge. Maths has always been an astonishingly international pursuit. The digits 0123456789 we use today were first written in India and inspired by Chinese mathematics. They were popularised by Persian and Arab mathematicians and then made their way to Europe via the Moors’ conquest of Southern Spain. Admittedly the Moors’ conquest of Spain was a form of colonialism, but apparently not the type of colonialism we are meant to be interested in.
Those who adhere to decoloniality don’t think they’re being racist. This is because, strange as it may seem, they don’t believe rational knowledge is superior to other kinds of knowledge. In this world view it is not insulting to suggest non-Europeans prefer ‘other ways of knowing’ to rationality and science.
The QAA themselves don’t explain what decolonising means. That’s presumably because they imagine it is just a buzzword that means being anti-racist and are unaware of its philosophical baggage. They do give one example of how we should decolonise mathematics, saying: “Students should be made aware of problematic issues in the development of the [maths] content they are being taught, for example some pioneers of statistics supported eugenics, or some mathematicians had connections to the slave trade, racism or Nazism.”
The issue is that they don’t ask us to focus on any other aspect of the history of mathematics. What about the German mathematician Emmy Noether, who was persecuted by the Nazis, or Alan Turing’s role in their defeat? The QAA’s guidance would lead to a skewed perspective on history seen entirely through the lens of decoloniality. The history of mathematics is not an essential part of a mathematics degree, but if we are going to teach it, it should be taught properly. That would mean teaching our students how to think like historians and how to critique theories such as decoloniality rather than simply accepting them as fact.
In New Zealand, Armstrong notes, the school chemistry and biology syllabus has been ‘decolonised’ and now “invokes the concept of mauri, or life force, to give the atomic theory a new spiritual dimension”. This is because of a “central diktat that Maori knowledge must be given equal status to other forms of knowledge, including science”.
Such downgrading of objective rational knowledge is, quite literally, insane. Much as I dislike the idea of the Government interfering in academic freedom, it is looking increasingly like it is going to have to act, if only to protect the quality of British education and research and prevent its standards slipping further into the dysfunctional mire of relativism and pre-modern mythology.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The solution to these problems is to get rid of all these (very likely formed during the Blair era) quangos whose employees think they have a mandate to enforce general policy decisions by virtue of being employed there. They don’t.
Another good idea would be to get rid of all these faux terminology like decolonization referring specifically to the undoing of something Europeans (viewed as homogenous blob of peope whose individual attributes don’t really matter) specifically did while implying that this activity had no historical parallels elsewhere as that’s just wrong. At various points in time, certain European states governed larger or smaller empires made up of conquered territories in other parts of the world. Such empires have existed at all times and all over the world and still exist today. Russia and China are current large examples with a long history. France also has quite a few so-called overseas departments and while the French nominally disbanded their North-African empire, they still have troops throughout all of the area. Historical examples would be the Aztec empire in present day Mexico, the Mugal empire in India and the initially Arabian but latter Turkish muslim empire.
That these quango clowns and their American idols believe in that the so-called white man’s burden actually exists but would be one of historically unrivalled guilt just means they’re as uneducated as they’re arrogant and racist.
Downvote cracks me up. I mean, seriously?! Come on, name yourself! Debate!
…great comment, RW.
If they debate, they’ll piss their pants and their mum will only have to bring them a new pair. Think of the poor mums.
As I understand it, New Labour Trotskyists colonised charities and quasi autonomous non-governmental organisations (QUANGOs) to act as a sort of government in exile when Labour were voted out. So far, no one has had the guts or ability to do anything about it, and so here we are with 25 years of New Labour government.
The questions which needs to be asked here are: Why is their a charity reviewing universities courses for conformance with a political doctrine? Which bit of that is charitable and hence, worthy of (covert) taxpayer support? Why does such an organization exist at all?
You have to ask yourself why European culture, people and achievements are a target, and why the continuation of European civilisation seems to be something that certain people want to destroy. Who are these people? Where do these ideas come from? What is their endgame? I don’t really know, but it feels like we’re in a war.
They’re citiziens of the USA of Anglo-Saxon descent, have some very bizarre ideas how to fix American society and politics and – as the kind of cultural imperialists they are – insist that everything in the world is just like the USA, except insofar its even more deficient, and has to be fixed in the same way.
The Poles are undoubtly Europeans and they even had an empire of sorts (the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) but never a colonial empire (in the sense colonial is used in this discussion). But this doesn’t matter: They have largely the same skin colour as the English. Hence, differentiating between these two peoples is just to bothersome for someone who’s on a holy mission to rescue the planet by projecting US problems onto it which are then supposed to be solved by US solutions.
“They’re citizens of the USA of Anglo-Saxon descent”
Of course they are.
I think this is a neurotic problem, ie, one which ultimatively comes from manic self-loathing strategies for compensating that: The people who are the driving force behind this belong to the very group they’re seeking to extinguish.
I know this from Germany where members of certain political groups do stuff like vandalizing German war graves they wash themselves off the guilt that they’re also German (I may obviously be projecting something here myself, but I don’t think so).
Oh dear.
By “Of course they are” I meant the opposite.
Of course.
The self-loathers aren’t the Generals, they’re the cannon-fodder.
“The self-loathers aren’t the Generals, they’re the cannon-fodder.”
That’s my impression too.
Well I don’t know. The USA has always seemed to me to have been a pretty successful country that did a good job of making better lives for the people who lived there. Of course they have caused a lot of trouble, but they are not alone in that. I just find it baffling. Why would anyone want to attack the concept of rational knowledge?
All of these bizarre ideas come straight from the so-called American left.
Maybe. Just don’t get why people want to destroy their own country and civilisation – one that has worked pretty well.
The question why people are doing this is really completely pointless because it cannot possibly be answered and hence, it’s just a distraction. They are doing it. It’s a bad thing. Therefore, it ought to stop.
A sufficient answer to the Why-question for the terminally curious could be: Because they’re neither subtantially different from Jim Jones nor have they learnt anything from this since then.
You’re probably right. In the back of my mind is the notion that some people involved in this process are just using this as a way to divide and conquer, to manipulate people, and they don’t believe any of the things they pretend to believe.
I think you’re doing them way too much honour by assuming that they must be capable of having an abstract idea of their own doctrine as something different from the fundamental fabric of their minds. They operate based on the notion that a perfect world theory which explains everything and can be used to predict everything exists and that they’re at least generally aware of it (ie, that their present idea of this world theory is the best one so far) and all of everything else has to be understood in the context of this theory. Insofar reality seems to contradict it, reality, or at least our present idea of reality, must be
wrong.
That’s why they frequently end up with positions which seem completely ludicrous to an outsider, eg, Trisha Greenalgh’s original idea of constructing anti-viral face armour out of women’s underpants.
Because they put the party line above truth. Same as Goebbels.
It’s not European culture, it’s European Christian culture.
(Which, of course, has pagan roots)
“Who are these people?”
I’m guessing that most of the males lack foreskins.
Well, I guess when I say European culture it’s to be taken as read I mean European Christian Culture as clearly that’s an essential part it.
Christian and Hellenic culture are the twin pillars of European civilisation.
This is debatable. It has been argued that some post AD pagans borrowed ideas from Christianity rather than the other way round.
What a spectacle. This is sad and pathetic. An academic desperately trying to plead with a bunch of bullies to leave him alone.
Because that’s all this is. A bunch of thugs vandalising one more thing of value in our society. And this poor man trying to reason with them begging them to stop.
Tragic and disgusting.
Realistically, this guy must tread very carefully because otherwise, the bullies closer to home, namely, those working in the adminstration of his university, are going to get him.
I am moved to quote Marcus (again):
“The aim of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to avoid finding oneself within the ranks of the insane.”
I agree with the sentiment, but did Marcus Aurelius really say this? Gregory Sadler says not, and give another nine fake quotes!
” They don’t believe rational knowledge is superior to other kinds of knowledge”.
And that, I would suggest, is why we are in such a mess.
These woke lefties think that indigenous knowledge is equal to rational knowledge and, for example, want Maori creation myths to be taught alongside evolution in New Zealand.
However they are the same people that lambast right wing evangelicals in the US who want the literal interpretation of Genesis to be taught alongside evolution, calling them anti-scientific rednecks. It seems that even woke people think some other kinds of knowledge are superior to other kinds of other kinds of knowledge.
It’s the woke left who are in the biggest mess of all, and can’t even see their own hypocrisy.
Giving space so that the Maori creation story can be heard is fine in my view, but 2+2 must still equal 4.
“This autumn, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) – an independent charity which reviews university courses – launched a consultation that urged universities to teach a “decolonised view” of mathematics.”
It is avoidance of taxation not helping people.
These are odd times.
We’ve seen the ‘opposite problem’ in the cries of ‘trust the science’ in 2020/21. This wasn’t actually anything about science (which is all about debate, criticism and challenge) but was more about keeping people from challenging those in authority.
But at a different level this decolonisation of mathematics is actually the same problem — authority has decided that mathematics needs to be decolonised, and there’s no place for people with an actual understanding of mathematics (and colonisation) to offer a counter-argument.
I sometimes wonder if we’re seeing a type of classicide in the west.
“decoloniality”
Ugh. I mean some neologisms should have been aborted in the woke womb.
This is why I never completed my PhD.
I tried looking up the word in Wikipedia. I’m none the wiser and my brain hurts.
Maths isn’t racist. work it out
Yellow Freedom Boards – next event
Monday 14th November 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A332 Kings Ride &
Swinley Rd, Winkfield Row,
Ascot SL5 8BP
Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
‘British Universities Told to “Decolonise” Mathematics’
And in other news British comedians told to stop taking the mickey out of 15.
Odd numbers are racist.
Prime numbers are privileged and threatening.
Even numbers are gendered and transphobic.
Only imaginary and Irrational numbers can be used from now on.
I say “i” to that.
I blame that late-comer Fibonacci myself: he was the smartypants who brought the dratted Hindu-Arabic Numerical system to the West and all the subsequent ‘colonialist numberthink’ that goes with it. As for all that Greek symbology used by those wretched numbers people to prove their theorems, words fail. I mean, how can we possibly take Pythagoras seriously any more – the guy was a freedom-loving bean-phobic pagan mystic who ticked off Polycrates, the kindly tyrant of Samos. I say bring back sexagesimal cuneiform along with wedge shaped reeds and damp clay tablets to write on. That should keep the wokerati happy, shouldn’t it?
I wouldn’t be very keen on crossing a bridge designed without the application of rational knowledge.
Surely we’re seeing the warnings of the Bible playing out – ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth…..Claiming to be wise, they became fools.’
“Much as I dislike the idea of the Government interfering in academic freedom, it is looking increasingly like it is going to have to act, if only to protect the quality of British education and research and prevent its standards slipping further into the dysfunctional mire of relativism and pre-modern mythology.”
The government will not act. They obviously want this wokery to go ahead and have handed over their power to sock-puppet organisations to do their work, thereby avoiding any responsibility or criticism falling onto the government.