And now we have revisionism for mathematics.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/oregon-education-math-white-supremacy
I can easily envision advocates of CRT rushing out to hire folks who were trained in this new form of math. Having such enlightened people in charge of radiological safety, criticality calculations, pharmaceutical management at Medical would be just for starters. With a couple of these in Accounting there'd be no need to fill out timecards anymore - why bother supplying exact data for a system that does inexact calculations?
That someone came up with a train of reasoning about mathematics being racist ignores the history of contributions by Arab, Indian, and many other cultures. Turning it into an apologist's game where everybody gets a medal just for showing up destroys the utility of math.
Mathematics is the language that describes reality. Introducing the changes the folks in Oregon wish to propagate and you'll turn that language into useless gibberish.
7 comments:
This is somewhat old news. CRT and variations of it for years have been saying concepts like hard work, meritocracy, being on time, western mathematics and individualism are "colonial values" and used to oppress certain groups.
Look at the 2 + 2 = 5 debate,"It began when James Lindsay, of New Discourses, posted a meme that read "2+2=4: A perspective in white, Western mathematics that marginalizes other possible values." Which than got picked up https://thepostmillennial.com/two-plus-two-does-not-equal-five-no-matter-what-twitter-says
Additionally, the missive that 2+2=5 was posted by trans rights activists, who see the equation 2+2=4 as an attack on the concept that "trans women are real women," and refuse to let logic, reason, or biology stand in the way of that. The stating of 2+2=5 is their way of saying that men are women.
For those of you who are unaware of history. The idea of getting rid of all old culture or stating that history has no meaning this was all done before in the USSR, Maos China, Canbodia and so on.
Some of the new postdoctoral fellows are a far cry from what we used to get.
09:09AM
Agree in part that the story is old news - revisionism is rampant. To me at least, seeing a school district actually embracing "ethnomathematics" was worrisome.
Because you are correct as well about how a number of revolutionary groups sought to purge history and culture they saw as interfering with their extremist ideology. Cambodia's killing fields and Nazi purges of "Jewish Physics" both took terrible tolls.
A year or two ago I would have laughed at the idea of "ethnomathematics" at the labs. Now, I'm less certain that such a thing would be resisted due to the inroads already made by CRT and other programs.
2/14/2021 12:18 AM
Some people are too young to have any memory of the historical atrocities you mention. Others were not taught about them because of political correctness. It is a blind spot in our culture that will cause problems for decades as people with "good ideas" try to implement them with no idea of the unintended, but unavoidable, consequences.
I may have missed WWII, but many from the previous generation did not. I learned about the horrors of that war from them. A friend's parents had much to teach you about life under the Nazis. Both had ID numbers from Auschwitz tattooed on their arms.
You learn from your elders, not your contemporaries. And that is a problem today, we're taught to laugh at, talk back to and eventually ignore our elders - because we and our friends are so much more enlightened than those elderly folks are. All of which leads to younger folk embracing radical philosophies and often tragic results.
Right now we have a plethora of ignorant young people running around. Whenever they encounter something or someone who does not subscribe to their wonderfully enlightened philosophy they transform into snarling viscous creatures that hurl insults and labels about things they do not understand. Anger one of these young adults and you'll be called a White Supremacist, Nazi, or an exploiter of White Privilege. They paint without a brush, merely slopping innuendo wherever they can without even understanding what the words they are using truly mean. This ignorance also gives them license to riot, tear down monuments, and commit arson.
This last activity should upset ordinary people the most. Throughout history there have been oppressive groups in power that gathered up books written by someone the oppressors chose to hate and burned those writings. During the riots in Minneapolis a young man approached a pair of book stores, broke the windows, poured in accelerant, and lit the books on fire. The act was recorded on YouTube by the arsonist to glorify his hatred of society. These stores were national treasures in the book world - one being the oldest independent science-fiction store in the US. They weren't bastions of any race, creed, or political stance. They did contain rare books, first editions, and books signed by the authors.
Uncle Hugo's interior
They were destroyed not to correct some social injustice, just burned because someone hated everything around him.
The Uncles after the fire
2/15/2021 4:31 AM
It is not just young people but older people who take advantage of the ignorance of the young people in order to bolster their agenda. Many of the these people know better but will go along with anything to get ahead. I am a proponent of encouraging diversity, helping out people from any group who are interested in science and community outreach, provided that you do not compromise standards or try to destroy the system itself in order to achieve some bizarre version of equity.
In the last three years at the labs we are starting to see shift from rational approaches to diversity and out reach to the more toxic form which includes lowering standards, or having to believe non-scientific or non rational propositions. Some of this has been discussed on the blog before such as in some LDRD funding awards being based on diversity rather than merit, management positions going to people based on diversity rather than merit, and the critical race theory training at Sandia. There are also more subtle things like discussion of team building and proposals often have elements of adding people for diversity reasons rather than what the person can add. I have also seen when discussing certain things even scientific issues that someone will argue you are wrong or you only believe that because of your "privilege". At times this can even be amusing as I have seen battles between different privileges such as hispanic males versus white females, where it was explained that male privilege is far more of issue than being hispanic, particularly in a state which is largely hispanic, therefore we need to do the experiment my way since I have less privilege. The other thing I have seen is an increased fear to speak up and if one does one is told you better "be careful". What is clear is that much of this is not driven by ignorance but by those seeking some form of power or advantage. When these conversations are brought up it is kind of obvious that the people pushing these agendas do not even believe it themselves but have simply foud a new tool or chess piece to utilize to their advantage. I am sympathetic to young people who often have good intentions but I have a rather low opinion of the new "woke" grifters.
Will this whacky new mathematics come to lab, who knows but I an sure that if can advance somebodies career or add money to somebodies you will see it.
2/15/2021 4:31 AM
Amen, GreggS. Yous is a voice of reason. the "woke" don't have any idea what damage they are doing or might yet still do to our Republic.
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