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“Decolonising Math”: Durham U Asks Professors to Consider Race of Mathematicians

80 points by leephillips 5y ago

skyde 5y ago
can someone explain why teaching Pythagorean theorem is racist. If we are talking about math and not “math history”, which mean i don’t care who was Euclid's how long ago he lived and what his race was. But i am just teaching the formula and how to use it. How is this white math or white privilege? And how would you teach how to compute the length of the hypotenuse without being racist ?
- homonculus1 5y ago
  You do not grok what is happening here. You are approaching the threat with a completely inadequate paradigm. I do not believe HN moderation would permit me to explain further.
  - cbozeman 5y ago
    Well indulge us and attempt it.
  - boppo1 5y ago
    Take the risk. Or make a throwaway.
  - skyde 5y ago
    I never said it was a threat, but the woke people claim the formula are racist so i give them the benefit of the doubt and willing to have someone explain why and how i should teach them in a less racist way.
    - tharne 5y ago
      > so i give them the benefit of the doubt and willing to have someone explain why and how i should teach them in a less racist way. I think you misunderstand their motives here. I don't think even the wokest of the woke believes in their heart that math is racist. It's about power for its own sake. By labeling this or that arbitrary thing as racist or colonialist or trans-phobic, these people force every conversation back to their topics, on their terms, and their turf. By doing this, they are A) Establishing themselves as the default moral authority, and B) Successfully pushing the idea that reality is nothing more than what they say it is.
  - tharne 5y ago
    As others have said, try us. Generally speaking if you're making a good faith argument and doing so civilly, this place is pretty tolerant of all sorts of views even if not everyone shares them.
- madengr 5y ago
  Supposedly it was stolen from Africa, at the time they were flying gliders off the pyramids.
- mr_toad 5y ago
  Arabic sources say Euclid was born in Lebanon and lived in Alexandria. Amusingly these were Greek “colonies” both, but I don’t think that’s the colonisation that people care about these days. The formula for the length of a hypotenuse of a right angled triangle is attributed to Pythagoras, not that the identity of the discoverer changes the truth of the mathematical identity one iota. Itoa derives from the ancient Phoenician unit of measurement, which was “nobody cares, shut up already”.
- a_shovel 5y ago
  Nobody described in either the article or the original source from the Telegraph seems to have made any of these claims. So I'm not sure why you're asking these questions here.
- danamit 5y ago
  You are not the target audience for this. I would assume it would be helpful for kids to hear some familiar names when studying subjects here and there. I know you cannot relate AT ALL and I do not relate either (did not grow up in the West), but people who are POC get affected so much by such things, and I don't see it being the end of Western civilization of some of this things are adjusted. Most of crediting is just mythos not even real creating. Just like how randos are credited with inventing the web, browser, email, infinite scrolling, password... etc Elon Musk claiming (and the being believed) that he co-founded Tesla is example of such mythos.
  - rastignack 5y ago
    I’m French. Pythagore is not even remotely French sounding. I never felt the urge to whine about it.
    - danamit 5y ago
      nice you are a badass!
  - skyde 5y ago
    Pythagore does not sound Chinese either and i never met a Chinese person concerned about it :-)
    - danamit 5y ago
      nice you are a badass!
- wahern 5y ago
  It seems like the argument may come from C. K. Raju. See this 2017 article in the Journal of Black Studies, "Black Thoughts Matter: Decolonized Math, Academic Censorship, and the "Pythagorean" Proposition", https://www.jstor.org/stable/26174222 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26174222 It's readable with a free JSTOR account, which might be worth it if you really care to understand the scholarly arguments, such as they are. At the very least, nobody will be able to say that you don't understand this particular argument.
prepend 5y ago
It will be interesting how this affects quality of learning. I’ve been to a few universities and some were not very educational although their degree was still a useful qualification for jobs that required a degree, any degree. In those universities, this wouldn’t have much of an effect because I just taught myself from books and grades and assignments didn’t equate to knowledge. I don’t care if those universities are diminished with this kind of stupid thinking. But I’ve also been to great universities and it would be a shame to make them worse.
bumblebritches5 5y ago
mc32 5y ago
What the…? Do they imagine people in Africa, Latin America or Asia will give a rat’s arse about the ‘race of the mathematician’ they are citing? It’s math. I don’t recall scrutinizing the ‘race’ of the mathematicians of antiquity or the renaissance or modern times when I was in school. These idiots want to inject ‘race’ into everything. This is utterly idiotic. What’s the point, to achieve paralysis? At the height of the Cold War, when the fate of civilization was in the balance, still we gave credit where credit was due -so long as translations existed to give people proper credit. But this? What happens when they get to philosophy --do they discard all of Western philosophy its derivatives and then construct something parallel but not quite copying it because, obviously it would have problematic underpinnings and unwanted ways of thinking and processing. Are Indo-European languages 'racist', do we invent grunts to communicate?
- laxmin 5y ago
  - 3a2d29 5y ago
    Not sure I agree exactly with the poster you are replying to, I am sure there is racism in regards to who gets credit for mathematical discovers. What I think more people find annoying is that this is another way rich people, sitting in their ivory towers, get to pretend to save the world from racism, without actually doing anything. It reminds me of America inventing the world Latinx and praising themselves as heros...while Latin America didn't care and didn't ever have an issue with previously used words.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      Whole Latinx seems like trying to fix an issue that isn't even there. In a way that is more culturally insensitive than any level of sexism it tries to combat. The whole word doesn't in anyway work in language context... It is fundamentally imperialist culture, forcing English on others.
  - laxmin 5y ago
_-david-_ 5y ago
It is amazing how some of the most educated people are amongst the dumbest. It literally has no impact if 100% of the mathematics we learn about are all from one race. Mathematics should be objective, either something is true or not. Who cares who discovered the various concepts?
- MisterMower 5y ago
  Speaks volumes about the quality of education these days, doesn’t it?
- cthalupa 5y ago
  >It literally has no impact if 100% of the mathematics we learn about are all from one race. Except, if things were truly discovered first by other people, should we not give credit where credit is due? Are you uninspired when you hear of someone who you feel kinship for, for whatever reason, who has done a great thing? If so, know that that is not universal - plenty of people are inspired by that sort of thing. Getting it wrong means robbing that feeling from others on the basis of a lie. >Mathematics should be objective, either something is true or not. Agreed. And that means saying who discovered what - timelines like this aren't subjective. Pythagoras did not discover the theorem - it dates back to the Egyptians or Babylonians, and it was written of in a fairly extensive manner in India hundreds of years before Pythagoras as well. Just because their usage did not cross over to West doesn't mean that they were being used just as much or as significantly. >Who cares who discovered the various concepts? The goal is to get the objective part correct in giving credit where it is due. This also helps solve a whole host of other issues you might not believe exist, but even from that standpoint, this is the right thing to do if you truly want mathematics to be objective.
  - jterrys 5y ago
    >Pythagoras did not discover the theorem - it dates back to the Egyptians or Babylonians, and it was written of in a fairly extensive manner in India hundreds of years before Pythagoras as well. Ah, see viewpoints like these are why I suppose I take offense to the whole gist of this entire conversation. Pythagoras absolutely did discover the theorem. Unless you can provide evidence that he was aware or attributed it to other regions or mathematicians? The Egyptians and Babylonians also discovered it as well. Convergent discoveries can occur. Your main notion is (I presume) about who discovered it first. Which is arguably somewhat of an important nomenclature. But then let me ask you this: How much weight can we attribute to the significance of this discovery to the Egyptians and Babylonians? When its Pythagoras' pupils and followers, benefactors and historians, who put his theorem to practical application and developed it further? Do we value the man who discovered the wheel, or the man who realized he could take that wheel, duplicate it, put a shaft between, and cart more things around? What about the man who taught others to do that? Pythagoras was part of an institution of like minded thinkers which educated the ancient world (if you want to get pedantic, they were glorified tutors to rich kids, but they still got paid to think and spread their knowledge nonetheless). Their preserved writings arguably lay the foundations of western thought. That by itself, in my opinion, lends quite a lot of weight to the importance of his attribution to the discovery of the theorem, and why I feel like you've slighted Pythagoras more than you realize.
arrakis2021 5y ago
We are in the end state of an empire
- dqpb 5y ago
  Or at least the end state of Durham University.
  - dunefox 5y ago
    One may hope.
tharne 5y ago
I agree with most of the commentors here. This is completely insane and the people pushing this stuff are stupid. But the thing that bothers me most is, if these people are so stupid, why do they keep winning?
- MisterMower 5y ago
  - shakkhar 5y ago
    > They are funded by the CCP First time I am hearing this. What's the source?
- Fern_Blossom 5y ago
  My honest theory, being the victim feels good. It's easier to wrap up yourself in the warm blanket of victimhood when you're a loser. Now, I should probably define "loser" a bit. Not in regards to wealth or career status. Generally, I mean someone that has zero going for them. No drive. No aspiration. No ambition. No skills. No pursuits. No self improvement. No self education. No... well... have you noticed the people loudest online regarding the whole victim this, victim that... if you took that away... what do they have? Like, you can't even nerd out with them about anything. No interests. No hobbies. Nothing really. Their entire personality and life comprises of this stuff. And I mean doing things within their control too. Sure, some aspirations are going to be out of your reach for one reason or another. Shit, all F1 drivers were pretty much chosen when they were sperm at this point. That's not in the cards for a lot of people. But to focus on a handful of things that don't work out for you and miss out on literally everything else the world has to offer... fuck, that's some childish shit. Which again, it's all just a tantrum of losers. The real problem, kids are being raised that this line of thought is okay. It's encouraged and glamorized. Most of you here are programmers to some degree. If you have a few years under you're belt, you had that hazing period to become a "real programmer". That first problem/bug that could not be looked up. There was no pre-packaged solution. And you bashed your fucking head against that problem/bug day in and day out. You dreamt of it. You thought about it when you ate and when you shit. You refused to give up even though you thought you were NEVER going to figure it out... until one night you smashed that wall and grabbed the solution by it's neck. Now imagine you thought it was computer science's fault because it was racist. Would you have solved it or just cried/whined? Looking for the light in the darkest struggle is what most encouraging tales and stories are about, for a good reason. Even Beethoven's Ode to Joy has the themes of dark brooding, then the bright, large success in overcoming and not giving up. A good reason it's lasted this long. Hiding in the shadows of this racism/victimhood bullshit has got to stop or humanity is going to reap a barren field.
dqpb 5y ago
So, Durham University is asking professors to be racist?
a_shovel 5y ago
I would have liked to find the original material the article and its sources refer to, but no luck on that. Still, there's lots to criticize and clarify in the article text itself. > The Durham University guide insists that academics need to not only consider what theories to apply but the race of the theoreticians to “decolonize” math. It does not state how a failure to do so will impact on a professor’s retention or advancement at the university. This sentence is phrased like there are unknown consequences for disobedience, or an aura of dread and fear hanging over the campus should anyone object. However, it's also factually compatible with an alternative explanation, one I consider far more likely, which is that the proposals are entirely voluntary suggestions, and there are no actual or implied consequences for not following them. I'd love to see to original text to confirm this, since it's usually the case. This specific article is annoyingly short on details, so I'm looking at the Telegraph source (since the other source also links back to the Telegraph). You can get around the Telegraph paywall by disabling Javascript. Yes, this is an attempt to inject racial representation into math education. It's not really necessary, no, but it's not gonna hurt the students' education if a professor decides to do it (and since it's voluntary, they're free not to), and maybe it'll make a foreign or immigrant student's day. Overall, this is a really, really low stakes situation, to the point where the most plausible reason the Telegraph would publish the article is as culture war bait. Now for a couple of specific points. > Staff are urged to consider giving short biographies of the mathematicians whose work they present in their modules and are encouraged to question themselves if they choose predominantly “white and/or male” figures. In short: "Feel free to take a short tangent about the people who discovered the things your teaching, and also don't leave out the Arabic and Indian scholars." This seems like an acceptable way to try to get a room of freshmen's attention. > Examples given include the “American version won out” of 10^9, for power of ten represented by a billion, which was different to the British 10^12. That just seems like good information to have that not a lot of people know. It might save a history major a huge headache down the line when they're looking at old British sources. > Giving an example for statistics modules, the guide says that Simpson’s paradox is often illustrated using survivors of the Titanic and enrolments in an American university, but an alternative that “decentres Europe” involves “the under-representation of Maori in New Zealand jury pools”. The injection of a social issue here seems kind of awkward, but it'd work to illustrate the concept. Maybe it'd make that freshman from New Zealand pay attention today. Or maybe it won't, but it's not gonna stop them from learning about Simpson's paradox. This is a great illustration of my main point: it's pointless and might not help, but the stakes are so low that I can't imagine how someone could honestly get mad about it. (postscript: "...a West 'confident in its values' would not be 'obsessing over pronouns...'" is a hilarious quote about a piece of guidance that, as far as I can tell, mentions neither pronouns nor gender issues.)
purge838123 5y ago
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows." -- Geronimo Gletkin
pyuser583 5y ago
Much of this seems fair: are you using good examples and story problems? Māori jury pools seems a bit esoteric, especially in the UK. Some examples used in math are extremely specific to certain background. For example, “The Josephus Problem” could probably have a more universally applicable name. At the same time, just because you’re acknowledging some math education deals with social issues doesn’t mean you can throw out rigorous scholarships. One of my professors specialized in the history of mathematics. It was popular to claim much of mathematics came from Egypt, not Greece. He did a very comprehensive survey of Egytian mathematics. A very common complain among Egyptian mathematicians was “almost everything in this field comes from the Greeks.”
- mc32 5y ago
  Ancient Greece was a diaspora all around the Mediterranean. Ancient Egyptians have little relationship to modern Egypt. That said ancient Egyptians certainly had to solve lots of math problems and they likely came up with lots of similar solutions.
  - pyuser583 5y ago
    There’s a big difference between coming up with “good enough” engineering solutions, and integrating a philosophical tradition with rigorous mathematics. One the Greens were not good at was applied mathematics. They saw math as sacred, and avoided using it for “mundane” things. For example, the ancient world had something similar to double ledge accounting, but none of the mathematicians tried to flesh it out.
ajuc 5y ago
First of all the idea that "white" = "colonizing", "non-white" = "colonized" is in itself racist and wrong. There have been hundreds of racially "white" populations colonized by others. For current day example see Ukrainians fighting colonization by Russians as we speak. For other examples see Balts or Irish. It is abusive and morally reprehensible to demand colonized people "check their privileges" just because in your ignorance you only consider their skin color as relevant. World is bigger than anglosphere, the criteria along which people were discriminated and subjugated varied significantly. Second of all - the point that the article makes (should race be considered when evaluating mathematical ideas) is different from the point that most comments make (attribution is skewed towards white people). It's perfectly possible to admit skewed attribution and argue against it while agreeing with the article that value of math should not depend on the race of the person who proposes it. I'd call it the only sane option, even.
- mikevm 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ajuc 5y ago
    Meh. I've seen accusations of marxism far more often than pleas for decolonization of non-colonizers, and for far dumber reasons.
  - notimrelakatos 5y ago
    > These people have no real knowledge of history That's a kinda naive take, the ones actually writing those theories know history pretty well. Marx rewrote all history fit his dialectic, the same is done by his children because it really works, rewrite the past to influence the present and get the future you want.
  - antifa 5y ago
    [flagged]
HstryrsrBttn 5y ago
akomtu 5y ago
Durham U's financials, especially sudden generous donations to its admins and professors, really deserve some attention. This wokeness campaign is a canonical example of astroturfing, funded by god knows who (CCP?), so fake it looks.
- nullc 5y ago
  At what point does a legitimately motivated activity become illegitimate when it is partially funded, without the participants direct knowledge, by parties that hope the activity will undermine others? Like, -- say there was a Save the Sea otter campaign that was pushing for closing down nuclear power plants because of their harm to the sea otter habitat (if this is actually a thing, sorry, I'm trying to make a silly example). This is a subject that reasonable people can differ on and it's very wholesome and within our tradition that people ought to be able to advocate for that. But then Russia hears about this and decides that getting rid of nuclear power would be bad for our economy, increase our dependency on their energy exports, and that the issue is the right mix of fringe and credible that it could become very divisive and distracting. ... So they massively fund it. Would that make the issue any less legitimate? Why? it's not the fault of the advocates -- particular if they don't know that its being funded for malicious reasons or they aren't personally the recipients of the funding. And if it doesn't make it less legitimate-- why would it be relevant to bring up in a discussion of the issue? It might be worth bringing up in the context of russian interference, but "our enemies fund this" isn't a particularly valid counter argument against the issue itself. ... particularly because the main motivation for malicious funding could be divisiveness rather than the advocated action itself being bad for us. If we did start to reject ideas because Russian funded promoting them then this would create an obvious vulnerability where they conspicuously fund the best ideas in order to kill them. You can't fight manipulation by doing the opposite of what it tells you to do since the manipulator can use reverse psychology.
JonChesterfield 5y ago
First parse was of relative velocity of fields of mathematics. Sounded great, I don't know where maths is advancing fastest. Deeply disappointed that it's actually a call to introduce racism into the foundations of technology. edit: Amused by the idea that failing to follow this agenda would compromise progression within the university.
Traster 5y ago
I think it's important to distinguish between what the university is actually asking academics to do, and what politically charged commentators are then adding to it and getting themselves (and some commenters here) outraged by. I think it's important to have a bit of intelligence about how you actually engage with this topic because what we have here is an article written by someone who clearly has an agenda and links out basically to his own other writing on the topic (as well as a culture war piece in a right wing newspaper), but doesn't link out to relevant things - such as the actual guidance the university is giving. I actually think this article does a great job of demonstrating how culture war topics are stoked completely detatched from the reality of what is happening. It takes together a few choice quotes about "whiteness" and "color-blindness" but if you want to actually what the people who said those things mean you get linked to another article on the same site taking even more things out of context and never actually linking back to what the person meant. And if you do finally get out of the self-referential hell hole you bounce over to some article in the Telegraph which does exactly the same job of pulling out a load of out of context quotes designed to enrage their audience, since that's the job of British newspapers. So let's trace that claim - Durham university decolonizing curriculum - link to the Telegraph and The College Fix. The College Fix appears to basically be a far right US site of very questionable quality and this article in particular doesn't have a byline. I'm a bit confused why a far right US site is reporting on British universities in the first place but ok. What does it say? It just quotes the telegraph. Great, so the Telegraph article, it references a decolonization campaign - with a link! Let's follow the link.... Oh it's another article from the telegraph, but this time about how Jane Austen got dropped in favour of Toni Morrison at Stirling University. But it provides a link! Let's follow the link to finally get to the source of this! Oh look it's the Telgraph again, but this time it's not even journalism! It's an opinion piece! So Durham University decolonizing maths is actually Stirling University decolonizing English, and it's not even Stirling University decolonizing English, it's actually an opinion peice in the telegraph. But maybe I got the wrong link, let's look at the next link in the Telegraph article. Oh! It's not about Durham at all, but now it's about Oxford "decolonizing" by dropping imperial measurement units from the curriculum. It is very telling that there is no path way from these culture war articles to the actual guidance from Durham university. I think there's a discussion to be had about the impact of colonization and race on academia, but the basis of that conversation isn't going to start from this article.
Woodi 5y ago
Which infinity of stupidity it is equal too ? What about cars ? Bicycles ? Rockets ? What about kalashnicov Africa is full of ? Paper is also very famously invented by ONLY ONE race ! :> Now is time to degrade academics wihow brain usage traces. O, btw. I think we should instantly call "brave man" anyone who has been called "homophobic" - it is sad you need to be brave to speak elemental truth.
jterrys 5y ago
The noble goal of this movement is to correct the racism and oppression in mathematical discovery. But I wonder if its supporters possess any self awareness about the weight of tacitly expressing these statements in the language of an oppressor with the mathematical notation of an oppressor? To acknowledge discoveries and contributions from extinct civilizations is noteworthy, but also somewhat irrelevant. Because ultimately its the brutal adoption and efficient application of math, physics, and chemistry that helped Europeans dominate not only the field, but the rest of the world.
imbnwa 5y ago
Flamebait with little depth is flamebait
bikenaga 5y ago
This is the "Decolonisation" statement on the Durham University math department's web site: https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/mathematical-sciences/equality-diversity--inclusion/decolonisation/ https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/mathematical-s... As an example, from the section labeled "Suggestions and resources": "Consider giving short biographies of the mathematicians whose work you present in your modules. If in doing so you realise that they are almost entirely (or even completely) white and/or male, ask yourself why this is. See if you can find contributions to the field from mathematicians of other genders/ethnicities." From some of the other comments here, maybe the original article gave the impression of coerced or repressed speech, but I don't see that in this statement. The section is labelled "Suggestions and resources". The quote above uses wording like "Consider giving", "ask yourself", "See if you can". The tone of the statement as a whole is similar. I was a math professor for 38 years. I'm actually kind of opinionated about my teaching, and never cared for people telling me what to say or do. But there was nothing here that pushed my buttons - and in fact, some of the suggestions seemed pretty reasonable.
- a_shovel 5y ago
  Called it. No imperious mandate from on high, just some reasonable suggestions on a website. A ton of HN regulars seem unwilling to apply a microsecond of skepticism to these articles.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    pushing official policy via deniable "private" distribution channels has been the SOP in the West for a long time. Perfectly valid assumption, especially given this verbiage in the source article, which you can verify for yourself: "Durham University is calling on professors in the math department" The employer told employees what to do. The end.
  - PolygonSheep 5y ago
    > just some reasonable suggestions on a website. I'm not terribly familiar with the inner workings of Durham U but I know that in the business world a "suggestion" can mean anything from "do this if you feel like it" to "you are in serious trouble if you don't do this" depending on context.
egberts1 5y ago
I would say “let them”. We all know how it would turnout.

80 points by leephillips 5y ago

can someone explain why teaching Pythagorean theorem is racist. If we are talking about math and not “math history”, which mean i don’t care who was Euclid's how long ago he lived and what his race was. But i am just teaching the formula and how to use it. How is this white math or white privilege? And how would you teach how to compute the length of the hypotenuse without being racist ?

homonculus1 5y ago
You do not grok what is happening here. You are approaching the threat with a completely inadequate paradigm. I do not believe HN moderation would permit me to explain further.
- cbozeman 5y ago
  Well indulge us and attempt it.
- boppo1 5y ago
  Take the risk. Or make a throwaway.
- skyde 5y ago
  I never said it was a threat, but the woke people claim the formula are racist so i give them the benefit of the doubt and willing to have someone explain why and how i should teach them in a less racist way.
  - tharne 5y ago
    > so i give them the benefit of the doubt and willing to have someone explain why and how i should teach them in a less racist way. I think you misunderstand their motives here. I don't think even the wokest of the woke believes in their heart that math is racist. It's about power for its own sake. By labeling this or that arbitrary thing as racist or colonialist or trans-phobic, these people force every conversation back to their topics, on their terms, and their turf. By doing this, they are A) Establishing themselves as the default moral authority, and B) Successfully pushing the idea that reality is nothing more than what they say it is.
- tharne 5y ago
  As others have said, try us. Generally speaking if you're making a good faith argument and doing so civilly, this place is pretty tolerant of all sorts of views even if not everyone shares them.
madengr 5y ago
Supposedly it was stolen from Africa, at the time they were flying gliders off the pyramids.
mr_toad 5y ago
Arabic sources say Euclid was born in Lebanon and lived in Alexandria. Amusingly these were Greek “colonies” both, but I don’t think that’s the colonisation that people care about these days. The formula for the length of a hypotenuse of a right angled triangle is attributed to Pythagoras, not that the identity of the discoverer changes the truth of the mathematical identity one iota. Itoa derives from the ancient Phoenician unit of measurement, which was “nobody cares, shut up already”.
a_shovel 5y ago
Nobody described in either the article or the original source from the Telegraph seems to have made any of these claims. So I'm not sure why you're asking these questions here.
danamit 5y ago
You are not the target audience for this. I would assume it would be helpful for kids to hear some familiar names when studying subjects here and there. I know you cannot relate AT ALL and I do not relate either (did not grow up in the West), but people who are POC get affected so much by such things, and I don't see it being the end of Western civilization of some of this things are adjusted. Most of crediting is just mythos not even real creating. Just like how randos are credited with inventing the web, browser, email, infinite scrolling, password... etc Elon Musk claiming (and the being believed) that he co-founded Tesla is example of such mythos.
- rastignack 5y ago
  I’m French. Pythagore is not even remotely French sounding. I never felt the urge to whine about it.
  - danamit 5y ago
    nice you are a badass!
- skyde 5y ago
  Pythagore does not sound Chinese either and i never met a Chinese person concerned about it :-)
  - danamit 5y ago
    nice you are a badass!
wahern 5y ago
It seems like the argument may come from C. K. Raju. See this 2017 article in the Journal of Black Studies, "Black Thoughts Matter: Decolonized Math, Academic Censorship, and the "Pythagorean" Proposition", https://www.jstor.org/stable/26174222 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26174222 It's readable with a free JSTOR account, which might be worth it if you really care to understand the scholarly arguments, such as they are. At the very least, nobody will be able to say that you don't understand this particular argument.

prepend 5y ago

It will be interesting how this affects quality of learning. I’ve been to a few universities and some were not very educational although their degree was still a useful qualification for jobs that required a degree, any degree. In those universities, this wouldn’t have much of an effect because I just taught myself from books and grades and assignments didn’t equate to knowledge. I don’t care if those universities are diminished with this kind of stupid thinking. But I’ve also been to great universities and it would be a shame to make them worse.

bumblebritches5 5y ago

mc32 5y ago

What the…? Do they imagine people in Africa, Latin America or Asia will give a rat’s arse about the ‘race of the mathematician’ they are citing? It’s math. I don’t recall scrutinizing the ‘race’ of the mathematicians of antiquity or the renaissance or modern times when I was in school. These idiots want to inject ‘race’ into everything. This is utterly idiotic. What’s the point, to achieve paralysis? At the height of the Cold War, when the fate of civilization was in the balance, still we gave credit where credit was due -so long as translations existed to give people proper credit. But this? What happens when they get to philosophy --do they discard all of Western philosophy its derivatives and then construct something parallel but not quite copying it because, obviously it would have problematic underpinnings and unwanted ways of thinking and processing. Are Indo-European languages 'racist', do we invent grunts to communicate?

laxmin 5y ago
- 3a2d29 5y ago
  Not sure I agree exactly with the poster you are replying to, I am sure there is racism in regards to who gets credit for mathematical discovers. What I think more people find annoying is that this is another way rich people, sitting in their ivory towers, get to pretend to save the world from racism, without actually doing anything. It reminds me of America inventing the world Latinx and praising themselves as heros...while Latin America didn't care and didn't ever have an issue with previously used words.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Whole Latinx seems like trying to fix an issue that isn't even there. In a way that is more culturally insensitive than any level of sexism it tries to combat. The whole word doesn't in anyway work in language context... It is fundamentally imperialist culture, forcing English on others.
- laxmin 5y ago

_-david-_ 5y ago

It is amazing how some of the most educated people are amongst the dumbest. It literally has no impact if 100% of the mathematics we learn about are all from one race. Mathematics should be objective, either something is true or not. Who cares who discovered the various concepts?

MisterMower 5y ago
Speaks volumes about the quality of education these days, doesn’t it?
cthalupa 5y ago
>It literally has no impact if 100% of the mathematics we learn about are all from one race. Except, if things were truly discovered first by other people, should we not give credit where credit is due? Are you uninspired when you hear of someone who you feel kinship for, for whatever reason, who has done a great thing? If so, know that that is not universal - plenty of people are inspired by that sort of thing. Getting it wrong means robbing that feeling from others on the basis of a lie. >Mathematics should be objective, either something is true or not. Agreed. And that means saying who discovered what - timelines like this aren't subjective. Pythagoras did not discover the theorem - it dates back to the Egyptians or Babylonians, and it was written of in a fairly extensive manner in India hundreds of years before Pythagoras as well. Just because their usage did not cross over to West doesn't mean that they were being used just as much or as significantly. >Who cares who discovered the various concepts? The goal is to get the objective part correct in giving credit where it is due. This also helps solve a whole host of other issues you might not believe exist, but even from that standpoint, this is the right thing to do if you truly want mathematics to be objective.
- jterrys 5y ago
  >Pythagoras did not discover the theorem - it dates back to the Egyptians or Babylonians, and it was written of in a fairly extensive manner in India hundreds of years before Pythagoras as well. Ah, see viewpoints like these are why I suppose I take offense to the whole gist of this entire conversation. Pythagoras absolutely did discover the theorem. Unless you can provide evidence that he was aware or attributed it to other regions or mathematicians? The Egyptians and Babylonians also discovered it as well. Convergent discoveries can occur. Your main notion is (I presume) about who discovered it first. Which is arguably somewhat of an important nomenclature. But then let me ask you this: How much weight can we attribute to the significance of this discovery to the Egyptians and Babylonians? When its Pythagoras' pupils and followers, benefactors and historians, who put his theorem to practical application and developed it further? Do we value the man who discovered the wheel, or the man who realized he could take that wheel, duplicate it, put a shaft between, and cart more things around? What about the man who taught others to do that? Pythagoras was part of an institution of like minded thinkers which educated the ancient world (if you want to get pedantic, they were glorified tutors to rich kids, but they still got paid to think and spread their knowledge nonetheless). Their preserved writings arguably lay the foundations of western thought. That by itself, in my opinion, lends quite a lot of weight to the importance of his attribution to the discovery of the theorem, and why I feel like you've slighted Pythagoras more than you realize.

arrakis2021 5y ago

We are in the end state of an empire

dqpb 5y ago
Or at least the end state of Durham University.
- dunefox 5y ago
  One may hope.

tharne 5y ago

I agree with most of the commentors here. This is completely insane and the people pushing this stuff are stupid. But the thing that bothers me most is, if these people are so stupid, why do they keep winning?

MisterMower 5y ago
- shakkhar 5y ago
  > They are funded by the CCP First time I am hearing this. What's the source?
Fern_Blossom 5y ago
My honest theory, being the victim feels good. It's easier to wrap up yourself in the warm blanket of victimhood when you're a loser. Now, I should probably define "loser" a bit. Not in regards to wealth or career status. Generally, I mean someone that has zero going for them. No drive. No aspiration. No ambition. No skills. No pursuits. No self improvement. No self education. No... well... have you noticed the people loudest online regarding the whole victim this, victim that... if you took that away... what do they have? Like, you can't even nerd out with them about anything. No interests. No hobbies. Nothing really. Their entire personality and life comprises of this stuff. And I mean doing things within their control too. Sure, some aspirations are going to be out of your reach for one reason or another. Shit, all F1 drivers were pretty much chosen when they were sperm at this point. That's not in the cards for a lot of people. But to focus on a handful of things that don't work out for you and miss out on literally everything else the world has to offer... fuck, that's some childish shit. Which again, it's all just a tantrum of losers. The real problem, kids are being raised that this line of thought is okay. It's encouraged and glamorized. Most of you here are programmers to some degree. If you have a few years under you're belt, you had that hazing period to become a "real programmer". That first problem/bug that could not be looked up. There was no pre-packaged solution. And you bashed your fucking head against that problem/bug day in and day out. You dreamt of it. You thought about it when you ate and when you shit. You refused to give up even though you thought you were NEVER going to figure it out... until one night you smashed that wall and grabbed the solution by it's neck. Now imagine you thought it was computer science's fault because it was racist. Would you have solved it or just cried/whined? Looking for the light in the darkest struggle is what most encouraging tales and stories are about, for a good reason. Even Beethoven's Ode to Joy has the themes of dark brooding, then the bright, large success in overcoming and not giving up. A good reason it's lasted this long. Hiding in the shadows of this racism/victimhood bullshit has got to stop or humanity is going to reap a barren field.

dqpb 5y ago

So, Durham University is asking professors to be racist?

a_shovel 5y ago

I would have liked to find the original material the article and its sources refer to, but no luck on that. Still, there's lots to criticize and clarify in the article text itself. > The Durham University guide insists that academics need to not only consider what theories to apply but the race of the theoreticians to “decolonize” math. It does not state how a failure to do so will impact on a professor’s retention or advancement at the university. This sentence is phrased like there are unknown consequences for disobedience, or an aura of dread and fear hanging over the campus should anyone object. However, it's also factually compatible with an alternative explanation, one I consider far more likely, which is that the proposals are entirely voluntary suggestions, and there are no actual or implied consequences for not following them. I'd love to see to original text to confirm this, since it's usually the case. This specific article is annoyingly short on details, so I'm looking at the Telegraph source (since the other source also links back to the Telegraph). You can get around the Telegraph paywall by disabling Javascript. Yes, this is an attempt to inject racial representation into math education. It's not really necessary, no, but it's not gonna hurt the students' education if a professor decides to do it (and since it's voluntary, they're free not to), and maybe it'll make a foreign or immigrant student's day. Overall, this is a really, really low stakes situation, to the point where the most plausible reason the Telegraph would publish the article is as culture war bait. Now for a couple of specific points. > Staff are urged to consider giving short biographies of the mathematicians whose work they present in their modules and are encouraged to question themselves if they choose predominantly “white and/or male” figures. In short: "Feel free to take a short tangent about the people who discovered the things your teaching, and also don't leave out the Arabic and Indian scholars." This seems like an acceptable way to try to get a room of freshmen's attention. > Examples given include the “American version won out” of 10^9, for power of ten represented by a billion, which was different to the British 10^12. That just seems like good information to have that not a lot of people know. It might save a history major a huge headache down the line when they're looking at old British sources. > Giving an example for statistics modules, the guide says that Simpson’s paradox is often illustrated using survivors of the Titanic and enrolments in an American university, but an alternative that “decentres Europe” involves “the under-representation of Maori in New Zealand jury pools”. The injection of a social issue here seems kind of awkward, but it'd work to illustrate the concept. Maybe it'd make that freshman from New Zealand pay attention today. Or maybe it won't, but it's not gonna stop them from learning about Simpson's paradox. This is a great illustration of my main point: it's pointless and might not help, but the stakes are so low that I can't imagine how someone could honestly get mad about it. (postscript: "...a West 'confident in its values' would not be 'obsessing over pronouns...'" is a hilarious quote about a piece of guidance that, as far as I can tell, mentions neither pronouns nor gender issues.)

purge838123 5y ago

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows." -- Geronimo Gletkin

pyuser583 5y ago

Much of this seems fair: are you using good examples and story problems? Māori jury pools seems a bit esoteric, especially in the UK. Some examples used in math are extremely specific to certain background. For example, “The Josephus Problem” could probably have a more universally applicable name. At the same time, just because you’re acknowledging some math education deals with social issues doesn’t mean you can throw out rigorous scholarships. One of my professors specialized in the history of mathematics. It was popular to claim much of mathematics came from Egypt, not Greece. He did a very comprehensive survey of Egytian mathematics. A very common complain among Egyptian mathematicians was “almost everything in this field comes from the Greeks.”

mc32 5y ago
Ancient Greece was a diaspora all around the Mediterranean. Ancient Egyptians have little relationship to modern Egypt. That said ancient Egyptians certainly had to solve lots of math problems and they likely came up with lots of similar solutions.
- pyuser583 5y ago
  There’s a big difference between coming up with “good enough” engineering solutions, and integrating a philosophical tradition with rigorous mathematics. One the Greens were not good at was applied mathematics. They saw math as sacred, and avoided using it for “mundane” things. For example, the ancient world had something similar to double ledge accounting, but none of the mathematicians tried to flesh it out.

ajuc 5y ago

First of all the idea that "white" = "colonizing", "non-white" = "colonized" is in itself racist and wrong. There have been hundreds of racially "white" populations colonized by others. For current day example see Ukrainians fighting colonization by Russians as we speak. For other examples see Balts or Irish. It is abusive and morally reprehensible to demand colonized people "check their privileges" just because in your ignorance you only consider their skin color as relevant. World is bigger than anglosphere, the criteria along which people were discriminated and subjugated varied significantly. Second of all - the point that the article makes (should race be considered when evaluating mathematical ideas) is different from the point that most comments make (attribution is skewed towards white people). It's perfectly possible to admit skewed attribution and argue against it while agreeing with the article that value of math should not depend on the race of the person who proposes it. I'd call it the only sane option, even.

mikevm 5y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ajuc 5y ago
  Meh. I've seen accusations of marxism far more often than pleas for decolonization of non-colonizers, and for far dumber reasons.
- notimrelakatos 5y ago
  > These people have no real knowledge of history That's a kinda naive take, the ones actually writing those theories know history pretty well. Marx rewrote all history fit his dialectic, the same is done by his children because it really works, rewrite the past to influence the present and get the future you want.
- antifa 5y ago
  [flagged]

HstryrsrBttn 5y ago

akomtu 5y ago

Durham U's financials, especially sudden generous donations to its admins and professors, really deserve some attention. This wokeness campaign is a canonical example of astroturfing, funded by god knows who (CCP?), so fake it looks.

nullc 5y ago
At what point does a legitimately motivated activity become illegitimate when it is partially funded, without the participants direct knowledge, by parties that hope the activity will undermine others? Like, -- say there was a Save the Sea otter campaign that was pushing for closing down nuclear power plants because of their harm to the sea otter habitat (if this is actually a thing, sorry, I'm trying to make a silly example). This is a subject that reasonable people can differ on and it's very wholesome and within our tradition that people ought to be able to advocate for that. But then Russia hears about this and decides that getting rid of nuclear power would be bad for our economy, increase our dependency on their energy exports, and that the issue is the right mix of fringe and credible that it could become very divisive and distracting. ... So they massively fund it. Would that make the issue any less legitimate? Why? it's not the fault of the advocates -- particular if they don't know that its being funded for malicious reasons or they aren't personally the recipients of the funding. And if it doesn't make it less legitimate-- why would it be relevant to bring up in a discussion of the issue? It might be worth bringing up in the context of russian interference, but "our enemies fund this" isn't a particularly valid counter argument against the issue itself. ... particularly because the main motivation for malicious funding could be divisiveness rather than the advocated action itself being bad for us. If we did start to reject ideas because Russian funded promoting them then this would create an obvious vulnerability where they conspicuously fund the best ideas in order to kill them. You can't fight manipulation by doing the opposite of what it tells you to do since the manipulator can use reverse psychology.

JonChesterfield 5y ago

First parse was of relative velocity of fields of mathematics. Sounded great, I don't know where maths is advancing fastest. Deeply disappointed that it's actually a call to introduce racism into the foundations of technology. edit: Amused by the idea that failing to follow this agenda would compromise progression within the university.

Traster 5y ago

I think it's important to distinguish between what the university is actually asking academics to do, and what politically charged commentators are then adding to it and getting themselves (and some commenters here) outraged by. I think it's important to have a bit of intelligence about how you actually engage with this topic because what we have here is an article written by someone who clearly has an agenda and links out basically to his own other writing on the topic (as well as a culture war piece in a right wing newspaper), but doesn't link out to relevant things - such as the actual guidance the university is giving. I actually think this article does a great job of demonstrating how culture war topics are stoked completely detatched from the reality of what is happening. It takes together a few choice quotes about "whiteness" and "color-blindness" but if you want to actually what the people who said those things mean you get linked to another article on the same site taking even more things out of context and never actually linking back to what the person meant. And if you do finally get out of the self-referential hell hole you bounce over to some article in the Telegraph which does exactly the same job of pulling out a load of out of context quotes designed to enrage their audience, since that's the job of British newspapers. So let's trace that claim - Durham university decolonizing curriculum - link to the Telegraph and The College Fix. The College Fix appears to basically be a far right US site of very questionable quality and this article in particular doesn't have a byline. I'm a bit confused why a far right US site is reporting on British universities in the first place but ok. What does it say? It just quotes the telegraph. Great, so the Telegraph article, it references a decolonization campaign - with a link! Let's follow the link.... Oh it's another article from the telegraph, but this time about how Jane Austen got dropped in favour of Toni Morrison at Stirling University. But it provides a link! Let's follow the link to finally get to the source of this! Oh look it's the Telgraph again, but this time it's not even journalism! It's an opinion piece! So Durham University decolonizing maths is actually Stirling University decolonizing English, and it's not even Stirling University decolonizing English, it's actually an opinion peice in the telegraph. But maybe I got the wrong link, let's look at the next link in the Telegraph article. Oh! It's not about Durham at all, but now it's about Oxford "decolonizing" by dropping imperial measurement units from the curriculum. It is very telling that there is no path way from these culture war articles to the actual guidance from Durham university. I think there's a discussion to be had about the impact of colonization and race on academia, but the basis of that conversation isn't going to start from this article.

Woodi 5y ago

Which infinity of stupidity it is equal too ? What about cars ? Bicycles ? Rockets ? What about kalashnicov Africa is full of ? Paper is also very famously invented by ONLY ONE race ! :> Now is time to degrade academics wihow brain usage traces. O, btw. I think we should instantly call "brave man" anyone who has been called "homophobic" - it is sad you need to be brave to speak elemental truth.

jterrys 5y ago

The noble goal of this movement is to correct the racism and oppression in mathematical discovery. But I wonder if its supporters possess any self awareness about the weight of tacitly expressing these statements in the language of an oppressor with the mathematical notation of an oppressor? To acknowledge discoveries and contributions from extinct civilizations is noteworthy, but also somewhat irrelevant. Because ultimately its the brutal adoption and efficient application of math, physics, and chemistry that helped Europeans dominate not only the field, but the rest of the world.

imbnwa 5y ago

Flamebait with little depth is flamebait

bikenaga 5y ago

This is the "Decolonisation" statement on the Durham University math department's web site: https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/mathematical-sciences/equality-diversity--inclusion/decolonisation/ https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/mathematical-s... As an example, from the section labeled "Suggestions and resources": "Consider giving short biographies of the mathematicians whose work you present in your modules. If in doing so you realise that they are almost entirely (or even completely) white and/or male, ask yourself why this is. See if you can find contributions to the field from mathematicians of other genders/ethnicities." From some of the other comments here, maybe the original article gave the impression of coerced or repressed speech, but I don't see that in this statement. The section is labelled "Suggestions and resources". The quote above uses wording like "Consider giving", "ask yourself", "See if you can". The tone of the statement as a whole is similar. I was a math professor for 38 years. I'm actually kind of opinionated about my teaching, and never cared for people telling me what to say or do. But there was nothing here that pushed my buttons - and in fact, some of the suggestions seemed pretty reasonable.

a_shovel 5y ago
Called it. No imperious mandate from on high, just some reasonable suggestions on a website. A ton of HN regulars seem unwilling to apply a microsecond of skepticism to these articles.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  pushing official policy via deniable "private" distribution channels has been the SOP in the West for a long time. Perfectly valid assumption, especially given this verbiage in the source article, which you can verify for yourself: "Durham University is calling on professors in the math department" The employer told employees what to do. The end.
- PolygonSheep 5y ago
  > just some reasonable suggestions on a website. I'm not terribly familiar with the inner workings of Durham U but I know that in the business world a "suggestion" can mean anything from "do this if you feel like it" to "you are in serious trouble if you don't do this" depending on context.

egberts1 5y ago

I would say “let them”. We all know how it would turnout.