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I don't know why you're being down-voted. I can only assume people don't realize "racist math" is a thing various groups are pushing. A quick googling turn up

I don't know why you're being down-voted. I can only assume people don't realize "racist math" is a thing various groups are pushing. A quick googling turn up these insane results: https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/math-racist-university-illinois-professor/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/10/math-racist-universit... https://www.foxnews.com/media/usa-today-mocked-asking-is-math-racist https://www.foxnews.com/media/usa-today-mocked-asking-is-mat...

jraph 4y ago
The fact that some people got the idea that math is racist is interesting, I had never heard of this before, and it might be interesting to do some research on this topic. Now, I'm not at all convinced by the arguments present in the National Review article. I don't know what was Pythagore's color skin and I never thought about that. We also cannot change history and purposely hide the fact that some things in math are European and Greek. Such, we could call theorems by other names, but we'd better check that people feel oppressed / discriminated by this kind of stuff. And, above all, the fact that it is generally said that zero, some fundamental stuff, was invented by Arabs, and that we call the figures we use themselves the "Arabic numerals" is not at all mentioned. Arabs are not usually exactly considered white. Leaving out such obvious counter argument has to be deliberate or it shows a monumental lack of research or thinking on the matter. So… meh? And the Fox News article… Meh too? I guess I will let this article and its citation choices ridicule themselves.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Pythagoras was Syrian, fwiw. He was also inclusive AF. Female Pythagorean philosophers (Miya, Damo, etc), multiethnic Pythagorean philosophers (Abaris), plus, his whole thing was incorporating diverse wisdom from multiple cultural sources— Egyptians, Persians, Babylonians, Jews, Greeks, etc. He was even inclusive of animals, if you read his vegetarianism. So, the heart of western math is a pretty solid place to look for modern morality. Just saying. We can’t expect that of the ancients, but Pythagoras really delivers. In 530BC!
  - xupybd 4y ago
    https://www.scienceabc.com/pure-sciences/how-irrational-numbers-discovered-mathematician-killed-hippasus.html#why-did-they-kill-hippasus https://www.scienceabc.com/pure-sciences/how-irrational-numb... Maybe they had some ground to cover on the morality front.
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      Not sourced. Wikipedia has sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus
  - yesenadam 4y ago
    > Pythagoras was Syrian, fwiw. Pythagoras of Samos?! Source? As far as I know, he was from Samos, a Greek island. Thus his name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      His father, Mnesarchus, was a jeweler and trader from Tyre. Source: Neanthes of Cyzicus, historian, 3rd c. B.C referenced in Porphyry’s “Life of Pythagoras”
      - yesenadam 4y ago
        Thanks. All the sources I've looked at say his ancestry is disputed and a great source of controversy, not surprisingly, so I guess it says different stories in different texts. I don't think your tone of certainty is at all justified. edit: Porphyry's book begins: "Many think that Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarchus, but they differ as to the latter's race; some thinking him a Samian, while Neanthes, in the fifth book of his Fables states he was a Syrian, from the city of Tyre." Your source lacks your apparent certainty. https://archive.org/details/CompletePythagoras/page/n81/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/CompletePythagoras/page/n81/mode... Interestingly, in the same text, Iamblichus, who studied with Porphyry and seems to have been a devoted Pythagorean, says in his Life of Pythagoras: "From the family and alliance of this Ancaeus, founder of the colony [of Samos], were therefore descended Pythagoras's parents Mnesarchus and Pythais."
Dylan16807 4y ago
Complaints around removing non-white names from theories or teachers pre-judging and sorting students seem valid to me. Are there specific examples that are crazy?

jraph 4y ago

The fact that some people got the idea that math is racist is interesting, I had never heard of this before, and it might be interesting to do some research on this topic. Now, I'm not at all convinced by the arguments present in the National Review article. I don't know what was Pythagore's color skin and I never thought about that. We also cannot change history and purposely hide the fact that some things in math are European and Greek. Such, we could call theorems by other names, but we'd better check that people feel oppressed / discriminated by this kind of stuff. And, above all, the fact that it is generally said that zero, some fundamental stuff, was invented by Arabs, and that we call the figures we use themselves the "Arabic numerals" is not at all mentioned. Arabs are not usually exactly considered white. Leaving out such obvious counter argument has to be deliberate or it shows a monumental lack of research or thinking on the matter. So… meh? And the Fox News article… Meh too? I guess I will let this article and its citation choices ridicule themselves.

dr_dshiv 4y ago
Pythagoras was Syrian, fwiw. He was also inclusive AF. Female Pythagorean philosophers (Miya, Damo, etc), multiethnic Pythagorean philosophers (Abaris), plus, his whole thing was incorporating diverse wisdom from multiple cultural sources— Egyptians, Persians, Babylonians, Jews, Greeks, etc. He was even inclusive of animals, if you read his vegetarianism. So, the heart of western math is a pretty solid place to look for modern morality. Just saying. We can’t expect that of the ancients, but Pythagoras really delivers. In 530BC!
- xupybd 4y ago
  https://www.scienceabc.com/pure-sciences/how-irrational-numbers-discovered-mathematician-killed-hippasus.html#why-did-they-kill-hippasus https://www.scienceabc.com/pure-sciences/how-irrational-numb... Maybe they had some ground to cover on the morality front.
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    Not sourced. Wikipedia has sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus
- yesenadam 4y ago
  > Pythagoras was Syrian, fwiw. Pythagoras of Samos?! Source? As far as I know, he was from Samos, a Greek island. Thus his name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    His father, Mnesarchus, was a jeweler and trader from Tyre. Source: Neanthes of Cyzicus, historian, 3rd c. B.C referenced in Porphyry’s “Life of Pythagoras”
    - yesenadam 4y ago
      Thanks. All the sources I've looked at say his ancestry is disputed and a great source of controversy, not surprisingly, so I guess it says different stories in different texts. I don't think your tone of certainty is at all justified. edit: Porphyry's book begins: "Many think that Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarchus, but they differ as to the latter's race; some thinking him a Samian, while Neanthes, in the fifth book of his Fables states he was a Syrian, from the city of Tyre." Your source lacks your apparent certainty. https://archive.org/details/CompletePythagoras/page/n81/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/CompletePythagoras/page/n81/mode... Interestingly, in the same text, Iamblichus, who studied with Porphyry and seems to have been a devoted Pythagorean, says in his Life of Pythagoras: "From the family and alliance of this Ancaeus, founder of the colony [of Samos], were therefore descended Pythagoras's parents Mnesarchus and Pythais."

Dylan16807 4y ago

Complaints around removing non-white names from theories or teachers pre-judging and sorting students seem valid to me. Are there specific examples that are crazy?