4 ms·

The article you linked is not what the discussion is about, though. Yours is referring to the impacts of discrimination on the people within the scientific comm

The article you linked is not what the discussion is about, though. Yours is referring to the impacts of discrimination on the people within the scientific community. The original article is about the effect of bias on the results of the research.

rayiner 4y ago
People rely on crude indications of trustworthiness. When you run an article titled “Modern Mathematics Confronts Its White, Patriarchal Past”—in reference to a field that’s chock full of brown people and Asians—it’s a signal. (Isn’t it funny how you never see article headlines talking about how post-modern philosophy was invented by white people?)
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  Are we really about to pretend there’s no basis in reality, though? I literally have older relatives who were told — very explicitly! — that they should stay out of what we would now call STEM fields because it “wasn’t for Jews.” So what’s not sitting right with articles like this?
  - rayiner 4y ago
    We can talk about it without adopting the rhetoric of critical theory (“math confronts it’s white, patriarchal past”) as the Scientific American article does. Critical theory is designed to meld analysis and political advocacy and it’s distinctive terminology is part of that advocacy. I’m not making a gratuitous reference to critical theory by the way. Your example illustrates the problem. According to critical theory, “Jews are white.” So where does your example fit in? Also, math as a field is full of Indian and Chinese people. How does it make sense to label it “white?” Under critical theory, it’s “white” because Black people are underrepresented. Critical theory compels a mode of analysis that groups people a certain way, focuses on certain kinds of discrimination or power relationships to the exclusion of others, and all for distinctly political reasons.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      You appear to be the first person in this particular thread to bring up "critical theory". How is anybody supposed to discuss anything with you if you're just going to find the weirdest thing anybody has ever said and then demand that they reconcile their own words against it? You win: you found something stupid that somebody said, once.
      - dionidium 4y ago
        This is a tendentious characterization of what's being called out here, which is an article in a prominent periodical discussing viewpoints that are increasingly supported by the heads of elite institutions at the behest of significant percentages of the political left. It's not just, "something stupid that somebody said, once."
        tptacek 4y ago
        I mean, you're just illustrating the same thing I criticized Rayiner for doing. He wasn't talking to someone who was supporting or expounding critical race theory. The person he was talking to mentioned that he had relatives excluded from the sciences because they were Jewish, and Rayiner hit him over the head with "critical theory". He wrote a bad comment. So did you. It doesn't have to be a bigger thing than that.
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rayiner 4y ago

People rely on crude indications of trustworthiness. When you run an article titled “Modern Mathematics Confronts Its White, Patriarchal Past”—in reference to a field that’s chock full of brown people and Asians—it’s a signal. (Isn’t it funny how you never see article headlines talking about how post-modern philosophy was invented by white people?)

jakelazaroff 4y ago
Are we really about to pretend there’s no basis in reality, though? I literally have older relatives who were told — very explicitly! — that they should stay out of what we would now call STEM fields because it “wasn’t for Jews.” So what’s not sitting right with articles like this?
- rayiner 4y ago
  We can talk about it without adopting the rhetoric of critical theory (“math confronts it’s white, patriarchal past”) as the Scientific American article does. Critical theory is designed to meld analysis and political advocacy and it’s distinctive terminology is part of that advocacy. I’m not making a gratuitous reference to critical theory by the way. Your example illustrates the problem. According to critical theory, “Jews are white.” So where does your example fit in? Also, math as a field is full of Indian and Chinese people. How does it make sense to label it “white?” Under critical theory, it’s “white” because Black people are underrepresented. Critical theory compels a mode of analysis that groups people a certain way, focuses on certain kinds of discrimination or power relationships to the exclusion of others, and all for distinctly political reasons.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    You appear to be the first person in this particular thread to bring up "critical theory". How is anybody supposed to discuss anything with you if you're just going to find the weirdest thing anybody has ever said and then demand that they reconcile their own words against it? You win: you found something stupid that somebody said, once.
    - dionidium 4y ago
      This is a tendentious characterization of what's being called out here, which is an article in a prominent periodical discussing viewpoints that are increasingly supported by the heads of elite institutions at the behest of significant percentages of the political left. It's not just, "something stupid that somebody said, once."
      - tptacek 4y ago
        I mean, you're just illustrating the same thing I criticized Rayiner for doing. He wasn't talking to someone who was supporting or expounding critical race theory. The person he was talking to mentioned that he had relatives excluded from the sciences because they were Jewish, and Rayiner hit him over the head with "critical theory". He wrote a bad comment. So did you. It doesn't have to be a bigger thing than that.
        deleted 4y ago
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      - deleted 4y ago
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