<story><title>The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics</title><url>https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-sinister-attempts-to-decolonise-mathematics/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TheLoafOfBread</author><text>Alchemy is unscientific by its nature - let&amp;#x27;s mix random substances to get gold.</text></item><item><author>viraptor</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve definitely been taught about a few of the early ideas around biochem. Alchemy, will to live, the misunderstanding around ether in physics, the various conflicts around how life begins, and probably others I forgot. You don&amp;#x27;t learn &amp;quot;the unscientific woo&amp;quot;, you learn the historical context of how we got to the current understanding.</text></item><item><author>zozbot234</author><text>&amp;gt; has been decolonised and now invokes the concept of mauri, or life force, to give the atomic theory a new spiritual dimension.&lt;p&gt;Uh, last I checked, Euro-centric biology or chemistry didn&amp;#x27;t involve talking about &lt;i&gt;Wille zum Leben&lt;/i&gt; or &lt;i&gt;élan vital&lt;/i&gt;.  Why does &amp;#x27;decolonized&amp;#x27; science need to get involved with this totally unscientific woo?</text></item><item><author>causi</author><text>&lt;i&gt;In this world view it is not insulting to suggest non-Europeans prefer ‘other ways of knowing’ to rationality and science.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This reminds me of that &amp;quot;racial sensitivity guide&amp;quot; that told employees punctuality and logical objectivity were &amp;quot;white expectations&amp;quot; not to be applied to persons of color.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;In New Zealand the school chemistry and biology syllabus has been decolonised and now invokes the concept of mauri, or life force, to give the atomic theory a new spiritual dimension.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I went to high school and college so deep in the bible belt you could put an empty Coke can to your ear and hear banjo music and our textbooks &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; didn&amp;#x27;t have anything like that bullshit.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>roenxi</author><text>That is perfectly scientific. It becomes unscientific is when people pretend it worked, or that they&amp;#x27;d ever seen it work.&lt;p&gt;Materials science follows in the footsteps of the alchemists, keeping alive the grand tradition of mixing random stuff together to see what happens. They too are frequently mixing things together in the hope of getting specific outcomes - usually it doesn&amp;#x27;t work.&lt;p&gt;Science is about how people deal with evidence. There wasn&amp;#x27;t any reason to think that gold couldn&amp;#x27;t be produced by mixing stuff together in the days when alchemy was popular. After all, a bunch of other substances could be made by mixing things, and it is obviously possible to mix liquids and get solids.</text></comment>
<story><title>The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics</title><url>https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-sinister-attempts-to-decolonise-mathematics/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TheLoafOfBread</author><text>Alchemy is unscientific by its nature - let&amp;#x27;s mix random substances to get gold.</text></item><item><author>viraptor</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve definitely been taught about a few of the early ideas around biochem. Alchemy, will to live, the misunderstanding around ether in physics, the various conflicts around how life begins, and probably others I forgot. You don&amp;#x27;t learn &amp;quot;the unscientific woo&amp;quot;, you learn the historical context of how we got to the current understanding.</text></item><item><author>zozbot234</author><text>&amp;gt; has been decolonised and now invokes the concept of mauri, or life force, to give the atomic theory a new spiritual dimension.&lt;p&gt;Uh, last I checked, Euro-centric biology or chemistry didn&amp;#x27;t involve talking about &lt;i&gt;Wille zum Leben&lt;/i&gt; or &lt;i&gt;élan vital&lt;/i&gt;.  Why does &amp;#x27;decolonized&amp;#x27; science need to get involved with this totally unscientific woo?</text></item><item><author>causi</author><text>&lt;i&gt;In this world view it is not insulting to suggest non-Europeans prefer ‘other ways of knowing’ to rationality and science.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This reminds me of that &amp;quot;racial sensitivity guide&amp;quot; that told employees punctuality and logical objectivity were &amp;quot;white expectations&amp;quot; not to be applied to persons of color.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;In New Zealand the school chemistry and biology syllabus has been decolonised and now invokes the concept of mauri, or life force, to give the atomic theory a new spiritual dimension.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I went to high school and college so deep in the bible belt you could put an empty Coke can to your ear and hear banjo music and our textbooks &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; didn&amp;#x27;t have anything like that bullshit.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Joker_vD</author><text>...okay, forget all the physical and chemical knowledge you have that was discovered after the year 1300 and propose a better method to learn how to produce gold. Where would you even start?</text></comment>