3 ms·

That's a very euro-centric view to sat that "humanity’s most extraordinary achievement" is something that has been developed/found out/whatever you want to call

That's a very euro-centric view to sat that "humanity’s most extraordinary achievement" is something that has been developed/found out/whatever you want to call it mostly in the parts of the world inhabited by white men. Like someone else mentions in this thread, probably "humanity’s most extraordinary achievement" was standing upright in the Ethiopian plains, or language or even writing (which showed up in several parts of the world) but, again, to label a thing invented by white men (paid to develop deadly weapons, among other bad things) as the "humanity's greatest thing ever" should not be ok.

atdrummond 5y ago
As a mixed man (half North African, half Western European) this comes across as needlessly antagonistic. There’s nothing in the article to indicate that this was picked due to the race of these inventors nor is there any immediately clear indication of unconscious racism. I know I’m probably biting at obvious flame bait here but this comment doesn’t really seem to be in the spirit of this site’s goals for quality discourse.
- paganel 5y ago
  > There’s nothing in the article to indicate that this was picked due to the race That's the worst type of racism, the one so well internalised that you don't realise is there, that's what makes it more dangerous compared to the "redneck"-out-in-your-face variety. I'm pretty sure that the author of article wasn't aware of his/her implicit euro-centric bias, he/she comes from a culture where things like "fundamental physics" are seen as representative of the group's intellectual nous (where the "group" ~= people raised up/educated in an euro-centric culture with euro-centric values), and hence as representative of the world/humanity as a whole. I take issue with this "the bestest thing made by white men" -> "the bestest thing made by humanity" transition.
jakear 5y ago
White men are not the only folks involved in researching fundamental physics and you know it. You comment devalues their work more than anything on this page. Your account is old enough I’d expect you to know what dang’s about to say already, the whole “we’re steering a ship and don’t want to get sucked into dialectic black holes” thing.
scythe 5y ago
It's not generally accurate that the developments which ultimately led to modern physics are exclusively European. Certainly the post-Renaissance work was primarily performed by Europeans, because the Ottomans shut down their observatories [1] and the Qing Dynasty banned "foreign" mathematics [2]. Europe's major competitors had simply forfeited the race. Even so, the Japanese physicist Tomonaga shared the Nobel Prize for the development of QFT [5]. Prior to that, European advancements were heavily influenced by Islamic and Indian mathematics, such as the development of place-value numerals [3] and modern optics [4] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople_observatory_of_Taqi_ad-Din https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople_observatory_of_... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mathematics#Qing_dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mathematics#Qing_dynas... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_s... 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world#Optics\\ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_in_the_medieval_Islami... 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin%27ichir%C5%8D_Tomonaga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin%27ichir%C5%8D_Tomonaga
nxpnsv 5y ago
Implying science is a European thing is anachronistic, and a direct insult and discouragement its many diverse contributors. Here's a map of contributing countries from the last experiment I worked on: https://cds.cern.ch/record/2654110/files/ATLAS-Map-July2021-blue.png?subformat=icon-1440 https://cds.cern.ch/record/2654110/files/ATLAS-Map-July2021-..., there is also a diversity & inclusion statement: https://atlas.cern/diversity https://atlas.cern/diversity

atdrummond 5y ago

As a mixed man (half North African, half Western European) this comes across as needlessly antagonistic. There’s nothing in the article to indicate that this was picked due to the race of these inventors nor is there any immediately clear indication of unconscious racism. I know I’m probably biting at obvious flame bait here but this comment doesn’t really seem to be in the spirit of this site’s goals for quality discourse.

paganel 5y ago
> There’s nothing in the article to indicate that this was picked due to the race That's the worst type of racism, the one so well internalised that you don't realise is there, that's what makes it more dangerous compared to the "redneck"-out-in-your-face variety. I'm pretty sure that the author of article wasn't aware of his/her implicit euro-centric bias, he/she comes from a culture where things like "fundamental physics" are seen as representative of the group's intellectual nous (where the "group" ~= people raised up/educated in an euro-centric culture with euro-centric values), and hence as representative of the world/humanity as a whole. I take issue with this "the bestest thing made by white men" -> "the bestest thing made by humanity" transition.

jakear 5y ago

White men are not the only folks involved in researching fundamental physics and you know it. You comment devalues their work more than anything on this page. Your account is old enough I’d expect you to know what dang’s about to say already, the whole “we’re steering a ship and don’t want to get sucked into dialectic black holes” thing.

scythe 5y ago

It's not generally accurate that the developments which ultimately led to modern physics are exclusively European. Certainly the post-Renaissance work was primarily performed by Europeans, because the Ottomans shut down their observatories [1] and the Qing Dynasty banned "foreign" mathematics [2]. Europe's major competitors had simply forfeited the race. Even so, the Japanese physicist Tomonaga shared the Nobel Prize for the development of QFT [5]. Prior to that, European advancements were heavily influenced by Islamic and Indian mathematics, such as the development of place-value numerals [3] and modern optics [4] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople_observatory_of_Taqi_ad-Din https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople_observatory_of_... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mathematics#Qing_dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mathematics#Qing_dynas... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_s... 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world#Optics\\ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_in_the_medieval_Islami... 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin%27ichir%C5%8D_Tomonaga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin%27ichir%C5%8D_Tomonaga

nxpnsv 5y ago

Implying science is a European thing is anachronistic, and a direct insult and discouragement its many diverse contributors. Here's a map of contributing countries from the last experiment I worked on: https://cds.cern.ch/record/2654110/files/ATLAS-Map-July2021-blue.png?subformat=icon-1440 https://cds.cern.ch/record/2654110/files/ATLAS-Map-July2021-..., there is also a diversity & inclusion statement: https://atlas.cern/diversity https://atlas.cern/diversity