Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon, Campus Reform; According to the Mathematical Society of America, the largest body of mathematicians in the world, mathematics carries “inherent human biases” which can only be addressed by “engaging in critical, challenging, sometimes uncomfortable conversations about the detrimental effects of race and racism on our community.”
ANTI-SCIENCE POLICY AND THE CENSURE OF DISCOURSE ON RACE AND RACISM
October 2, 2020
A statement from the MAA Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics
We stand in the midst of a year of transitions. We have long been aware of broad shifts in the postsecondary education landscape, but 2020 has also been marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and emergency distance/online/hybrid teaching. Each of these new challenges for higher education has evolved alongside a movement to stand up for Black lives. The data are clear: these issues are inseparable. Black, Latinx, and Indigenous lives are the most affected by policing, health, and education policies.
Policy must be informed by facts and science. Thanks to science and mathematics, we understand now that masks, social distancing, frequent, rapid, mass testing, and contact tracing are all fundamental to keep our communities safer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet policies at the federal level have not consistently reflected these facts; for example, choosing not to incorporate a mask-mandate in the US has had serious consequences. As Michael Dorff and Michael Pearson stated in a recent Math Values blog, “We encourage MAA members, regardless of political persuasion, to speak out for the value of science and mathematics, and hold our leaders accountable to make use of the best possible scientific evidence in policy decisions.” The social sciences are part of this community, helping us understand how to effectively communicate these practices to people, while also simultaneously analyzing our practices and policies with a critical lens. Critical race theory, referenced in recent Executive statements by the President of the United States, is an established social science inquiry which is grounded in decades of scholarship. It is misguided, at best, to reduce this theory to the race-blaming of white people and to define it and the discussion of systemic racism as a “divisive concept.” Furthermore, banning training utilizing this scholarship to raise consciousness, from federal and federal contractor workplaces, is an encroachment on science and the academy. At the first presidential debate this year, President Trump’s refusal to disavow white nationalism and his encouragement of groups that the FBI has identified as the greatest threats of domestic terrorism, only serves to reinforce the sense that his administration seeks to reverse decades of progress on civil rights for all citizens. These actions frame a current United States leadership that consistently promotes policy in direct opposition to data and science-based evidence.
Although mathematics, science, and higher education develop fact-based theories and practices that should inform policy, they are also political because they exist within a highly politicized system. Acknowledging that the United States has serious systemic discrimination has somehow leaped from a political issue to a partisan issue. More alarmingly, what we see is a series of pronouncements apparently designed to suppress conversation and action on race and racism in the United States. The American Educational Research Association recently released a statement that clearly addresses this troubling pattern of the federal response to racial justice unrest in the US, which reframes the conversation on race and racism as “unAmerican.” We borrow from and add to their list of recent, deliberate actions taken by the federal government:
- A September 4th Executive Memorandum to all Executive Departments and Agencies states that “all agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on “critical race theory,” “white privilege,” or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil. In addition, all agencies should begin to identify all available avenues within the law to cancel any such contracts and/or to divert Federal dollars away from these unAmerican propaganda training sessions.”
- On September 6th, President Trump tweeted that the Department of Education was investigating schools using the 1619 project – a Pulitzer-Prize winning project meant to help fill a gap in mid-20th century US history by providing educational materials on slavery – and would withdraw funding.
- The September 16th launch of a Department of Education investigation into Princeton University weaponized a recent letter from Princeton’s President describing Princeton’s efforts to move forward with structural reform in response to reflection on their past. “On September 2, 2020, you admitted Princeton’s educational program is and for decades has been racist. Among other things, you said “[r]acism and the damage it does to people of color persist at Princeton …” and “[r]acist assumptions…remain embedded in structures of the University itself.”
- The September 22nd Executive Order is framed by a preamble centering white men as being hurt by blame for racism in the US, which effectively extends the September 4th ban on racial equity training to all Federal contractors. It then defines a list of “divisive concepts” which, for example, includes the idea that the meritocracy is “racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race, as well as new terms such as “race and sex stereotyping” and “race and sex scapegoating” which seek to renarrate white fragility as racism against white people.
- The September 28th Executive memorandum, which directs Federal funding agencies to “identify all programs for which the agency may, as a condition of receiving Federal grants and cooperative agreements, require the recipient to certify that it will not use Federal funds to promote the list of concepts listed in Section 5 of the[September 22nd] Executive Order.”
As mathematicians, we notice patterns – this is something we are all trained to do. We bring these Executive actions to our community’s attention for several reasons: we see the pattern of science being ignored and the pattern of violence against our colleagues that give voice to race and racism. We need to fight against these patterns. As educators, we also recognize the threatening pattern of banning education and withdrawing education funding to suppress conversations on race and racism, extending from elementary to postsecondary institutions to the workplace and research spheres.
It is time for all members of our profession to acknowledge that mathematics is created by humans and therefore inherently carries human biases. Until this occurs, our community and our students cannot reach full potential. Reaching this potential in mathematics relies upon the academy and higher education engaging in critical, challenging, sometimes uncomfortable conversations about the detrimental effects of race and racism on our community. The time is now to move mathematics and education forward in pursuit of justice.
Math Community Members:
Carrie Diaz Eaton, Chair, Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics
Francesca Bernardi, Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics
Christopher Goff, Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics
Kamuela Yong, Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics
Margaret Reese, Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics
Michael Pearson, Executive Director, MAA
Michael Dorff, President of the MAA
Deirdre Longacher Smeltzer, Senior Director for Programs, MAA
Victor Piercey, Chair of the Michigan Section of the MAA
Jenna Carpenter, Co-Chair, Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences
Nancy Sattler, member AMATYC, MAA, TPSE, & Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences
Kathryn Kozak, AMATYC President
Anne Dudley, AMATYC Executive Director
Yun Kang, AMS representative for Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences
Omayra Ortega, Editor-in-Chief of the NAM newsletter and NAM representative for Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences
Jennifer Quinn, President-Elect of the MAA
James A. M. Álvarez, MAA Board of Directors & MAA Congress Representative for Minority Interests
Marilyn Elaine Mays, Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical SciencesSource: https://www.mathvalues.org/masterblog/anti-science-policy-censure-of-discourse-on-race-and-racism
Wikipedia provides the following definition of Critical Race Theory;
Critical race theory (CRT)[1] is a theoretical framework in the social sciences that examines society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power.[2][3] It is loosely unified by two common themes. Firstly, CRT proposes that white supremacy and racial power are maintained over time, and in particular, that the law may play a role in this process. Secondly, CRT work has investigated the possibility of transforming the relationship between law and racial power, as well as pursuing a project of achieving racial emancipation and anti-subordination more broadly.[4] Developed out of postmodern philosophy[citation needed], it is based on critical theory, a social philosophy that argues that social problems are influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors. It began as a theoretical movement within American law schools in the mid- to late 1980s as a reworking of critical legal studies on race issues.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
If there is evidence a mathematician has not received proper recognition for their work because of racism, politics, religious bigotry, or any number of other reasons, by all means correct the record and give people the recognition they deserve.
But suggesting mathematics itself is racist, as MAA appears to be doing, is a pretty big claim. To quote Carl Sagan, An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof. I would like to see examples of racist mathematics. The statement provided by MAA does not appear to provide any evidence to substantiate their claim of inherent racism.
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From the article: “But suggesting mathematics itself is racist, as MAA appears to be doing, is a pretty big claim. To quote Carl Sagan, An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof. I would like to see examples of racist mathematics. The statement provided by MAA does not appear to provide any evidence to substantiate their claim of inherent racism.”
These guys are not mathematicians, they are political activists. Nancy Pelosi could have written that article.
Mathematics change based on race??? Surely this is the work of a liberal arts major.
Their statement was replete with lies, obfuscations, and imprecision. “Most affected?” What the hell does that mean? Do police and hospitals and schools not affect white or Asian people? Then there’s the “disavowal” of white supremacy. Trump has done that dozens of times, but these yahoos keep trucking out the same lies. And CRT is not science. It’s philosophy.
One of my liberal friends is in a quandary because the offspring cannot find a job because all the positions in his field are being filled by women. It doesn’t even help that he is gay. I guess that’s Karma.
Obviously we need to do more integration. Newton would be proud.
There’s a 100% likelihood it’s all gone too stupid for words.
MAA = Mathematical Association of America.* I attended a meeting a long while ago. They looked to have arrived in Albuquerque without a hairbrush among them. The fact is that mathematicians are not very worldly or practical people, but they do flesh out ideas, often originating in the practical needs of physicists and engineers, and make them rigorous.
People of a certain mindset eventually overwhelm the leadership of organizations. Look at what has happened to AAAS.
* – with apologies to DAve Middleton, perhaps this is the American Mathematical Association of America.
Isn’t it so racist that Western civilization adapted the Hindu-Arabic numeral system for use by almost every nation, by the general population as well as by all mathematicians. Just unbelievable!
And all peoples should take to the streets in protest over the fact that mostly Greek letters are used in expressing the calculus as invented by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, independently.
As the MAA Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics advises in the excerpts of their PR above: “It is time for all members of our profession to acknowledge that mathematics is created by humans and therefore inherently carries human biases. Until this occurs, our community and our students cannot reach full potential.”
It is thus obvious that the full potential for 1+1=2 has not be realized. Neither has the full potential for x^2 + y^2 = z^2. Neither has the full potential for today’s mathematics to allow our understanding of the universe, from the level of quantum mechanics, to black holes, to gravity waves, to dark matter and dark energy, to cosmology and picoseconds following the Big Bang . . . heck, this human, race-biased mathematics even allows certain people to assert they have an understanding of climate change™.
Time for a committee to be formed to recommend the manner of rewriting all expressions and symbolism used in ALL mathematical fields today so as to eliminate any possible interpretation that racial bias might be present. Yeah, THAT’S the ticket!
/sarc off
In the long march to tyranny, the lunatic left has for decades employed the strategy of targeting and infiltrating the leadership and bureaucracies of professional societies. Activists then have the freedom to write such balderdash and publish it under the cover of the organization.
My wife confronted this in her first years of teaching high school mathematics in the 1970s. When invited to join the National Education Association (NEA), upon examining their leadership and their views, she determined that they were an unholy, unworthy organization that did not reflect her views. Unfortunately, it was not long before the alternative teacher organizations were also corrupted. Fortunately, we were in Texas, a non-unionized, open-shop state, so she was not forced to pay dues to the beast just for the privilege of being employed.
This article in particular was clearly written by regressive activists under the guise of the organization.
I would add, however, that a substantial change in mathematics education did occur that could be perceived as racist. Math text books shifted from being 2 pound (~1 kg) books full of math concepts and practice problems to being 2 to 3 kg fluff books full of cutesy photos and color illustrations in an attempt to make math “relevant” the the pampered students. By the time our children were in school, they suffered back pains from hauling around 15-20 kg of fluffy textbooks in all subjects (lockers were banned because of contraband) day after day. When you take this route, there is plenty of room to seek out perceived bias, not in the mathematics itself but in the politically correct illustrations. In fact, it becomes increasingly difficult to find the mathematics amidst the fluff.
The very enlightened en-Ratured Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, on a crusade against China in all US Universites, is in for a terrible shock.
Negative Numbers are a Chinese conspiracy !
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Chapters_on_the_Mathematical_Art
It gets worse, Zero is a Muslim conspiracy, but the worst of all, Complex numbers were European Gauss’s specialty!
And most cruel of all are Gödel’s incompleteness Theorems – Math’s is incomplete! Bertrand Russell, the great eugenicist, was utterly refuted by an Austrian!
Evidence of bias abounds everywhere – too much for a mere Secretary of State to handle.
Dare I, biased as I am, say that 5 is NOT a prime Number? Oops – prime sounds inherently biased, but at least I got 5 off the hook.
A little math. When a black person looks up what will he/she/they see?
6 white people
2 Hispanic people
1 black – (themselves)
1 Asian/Native American/etc.
I’m sorry, but all the math in the world will not solve the numerical disparity above. Only a cohesive society that all claim membership in will help and reduce feelings of powerlessness. Nationalism has stood us in good stead in the past and could again. We certainly have no lack of people wanting to join the membership of being American.
Jim,
In your little example, I personally see 10 human beings. All this grouping of people based on where their ancestors came from is lunacy and the source of many of society’s ills. Claiming that people can be grouped into different “races” is an inherently biased and bigoted proposition. We are all human beings, genetically almost indistinguishable from each other, and it’s long past time to stop the childish practice of treating people poorly just because they look and/or think a bit differently than ourselves.
Paul
Very idealistic! Knowing that Blacks have a homicide rate about an order of magnitude greater than the US national average, are you telling me that if you were walking down a dark street alone, and saw someone approaching you, that you wouldn’t be concerned about them being dressed differently from you or not being of the same culture? If so, then it would seem that you have lost the innate self-preservation instinct.
Math is the language. It can be difficult to wrap your head around but important to learn. It is also the great equaliser. Once you can do it a ton of career options open up for you.
I fail to see how any math symbols or expressions can be viewed as racist. That would be like saying a language is racist.
(was that a straight line? They do say that.)
The stampede of stupids continues!!!!!
It’s everywhere.
If this is a double post, I apologize. My prior post appeared, then promptly disappeared. WUWT? That has been happening lately with great frequency. Sometimes, the original post then reappears.
In the long march to tyranny, the lunatic left has for decades employed the strategy of targeting and infiltrating the leadership and bureaucracies of professional societies. Activists then have the freedom to write such balderdash and publish it under the cover of the organization.
My wife confronted this in her first years of teaching high school mathematics in the 1970s. When invited to join the National Education Association (NEA), upon examining their leadership and their views, she determined that they were an unholy, unworthy organization that did not reflect her views. Unfortunately, it was not long before the alternative teacher organizations were also corrupted. Fortunately, we were in Texas, a non-unionized, open-shop state, so she was not forced to pay dues to the beast just for the privilege of being employed.
This article in particular was clearly written by regressive activists under the guise of the organization.
I would add, however, that a substantial change in mathematics education did occur that could be perceived as racist. Math text books shifted from being 2 pound (~1 kg) books full of math concepts and practice problems to being 2 to 3 kg fluff books full of cutesy photos and color illustrations in an attempt to make math “relevant” the the pampered students. By the time our children were in school, they suffered back pains from hauling around 15-20 kg of fluffy textbooks in all subjects (lockers were banned because of contraband) day after day. When you take this route, there is plenty of room to seek out perceived bias, not in the mathematics itself but in the politically correct illustrations. In fact, it becomes increasingly difficult to find the mathematics amidst the fluff.
Mathematics in itself may not be unjust but the manner in which it is applied maybe. https://www.ajl.org/ seeks to look at whether or not mathematical machines used in everyday decisions are fair and just.
One of my degrees is in “Applied Mathematics” and this info on the Mathematical Society of America m akes me wonder about what they are teaching in college today. Perhaps if the do a search on “Mean household income and IQ” or looked at this recent study – “The Bell Curve Review: IQ Best Indicates Poverty”
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/36853322/Ben_Palmer_Ec_970.pdf
Establishing quotas for races, ethnicity, etc,, in and of itself is not going to increase the number of black Mathematicians, Astrophysicists, Engineers, etc. A serious study needs to be completed as to why those persons that complete high school and/or college have a higher income than those that do not and their offspring have a higher IQ. The present tactic of lowering admission standards has NOT helped and has lowered the average IQ of college graduates by an average of two points per decade since the 60’s.
“Establishing quotas for races, ethnicity, etc,, in and of itself is not going to increase the number of black Mathematicians, Astrophysicists, Engineers, etc.” — Mathematician
The means the left chose to remedy the then-reality that Blacks were underrepresented in College.
Assuming that it must be that the barrier was that White People could afford to send their kids but the Black People (overrepresented among the poor) could not. Quotas, student loans, and other remedies applied.
On a level playing field the Black astrophysicist is surely a credit to his race.
When there was artificial advantage given being Black — even among those who would have gotten their M.D fair and square — is distrusted.
There must be a level playing field that everyone has access to. I do not know the answer, nor do you. Experiments in education in a marketplace across the land. There will emerge the Mac Donalds, and Burger King, and Wendys Schools and nobody but the market told them to. Let the government fund the student, not the school.
I wonder if those of us with Applied Mathematics degrees are more, less or equal racists to those with pure Mathematics degrees?
Aren’t you exhibiting bias when you decide to major in Applied Mathematics instead of Analytical (“pure”) Mathematics?
One only need take a junior or senior year level course in Applied Statistics and Theoretical Statistics to see the reason many universities are offering degrees in Applied Mathematics. The why some of these theoretical Statisticians are corrupting the facts about Climate Change proves this observation. The number of mathematicians I have met that haven’t the vaguest idea of how to solve real problems rather than mathematical puzzles is AMAZING.
I noticed this is from the Mathematics Association, doubtless intended to make you think it is an Association of Mathematicians, and not just some snazzily named group of social “scientists” trying to bronze their reputation by trying to hitch on to an actual science.
I forgot to add, much like a group of “climate scientists” who actually work in the grievance studies departments.
When I was in high school, there was a time when nonsense jokes such as “Why is a mouse?”, briefly became popular. The question was ‘ill-formed.’ However, the answer was unexpected and nonsensical, hence it elicited a guffaw, if not a puzzled look.
The problem is, these ‘woke’ social justice evangelists don’t realize just how absurd they appear to people who still have their feet on the ground and their heads on right. Hopefully, this will pass, just as the fascination with nonsense jokes did. If it doesn’t, we will experience another “Dark Age.”
It will not “just pass”. A nuclear dark age is simply not an option.
Just like the last dark age was cleared with concerted effort, the Renaissance, now even more so an huge effort is needed. Columbus was the Renaissance in action, now we have Space.
The social sciences are not part of the science community.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a subjectivist narrative. Subjectivist narratives assume what should be proved, grant their assumptions the weight of evidence, and every study is self-confirmatory.
Critical Race Theory says that, “racism is normal, not aberrant, in American society and, because it is so enmeshed in the fabric of our social order, it appears both normal and natural to people in this culture.”
In the normal of the phrase, normal, not aberrant, in American society CRT means to say that racism was present as a trait at the European settlement in North America. Its obsession with people of European descent — White Supremacy, Whiteness Studies, White Fragility, white this, white that, white whatever; never anything else — betrays the racist core of Critical Race Theory.
Critical Race Theory is itself a racist doctrine because it promotes an unfounded and prejudicial group condemnation.
Critical Race Theory has swept the academy, the scientific societies, and the NAS. The people running these organizations have put politics over science, subjectivism over objectivity, and a febrile self-righteousness over professional and intellectual integrity. They have fatally betrayed every Enlightenment principle that once guided their station.
Also worth recognizing is that, like the social sciences, Mathematics is not part of the science community. Mathematics has theorems, not theories. It has proofs, not falsifiables. None of it is subject to the verdict of experiment. Mathematicians have no experience with the empirical evaluation of ideas, or of their refutation.
It is now clear that neither the MAA leadership nor the members of the Committee for Minority Participation in Mathematics are able to discern the difference between science and prejudicial narration, being evidently confused about the distinction between racist pseudo-scholarship and objective knowledge.
I once thought these failures of principled standing were due to moral cowardice. I still do, but in addition it seems to me that a large fraction of humans lack the psychology necessary for the courage of individualism and personal ethics. They surrender to the moral collective of their day, because they have no other way to be.
Call them the cultural sub-species of humans composed of a collectivist psychology. Wherever organizations they come to control, they allow only their psychological like to enter; other collectivists. And so institutions fall to them, one-by-one. Converted into propaganda front-groups.
There is a bit more to it .
See Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and Critique of Practical Reason.
This the the root of the Romantic Movement, identified by poet Heinrich Heine in his Religion and Philosophy in Germany, predicting why and when, 100 years before, what happened in 1934. Most scientists, engineers, dismiss Heine as a poet, never heard of this work. Hitler’s first order in Paris was the destruction of Heine’s grave. Now look at Portland again…
Another poet, Edgar Allan Poe, referred to Can’t, in other words Kant just cannot do it!
The Frankfurt School of Adorno, Arendt, Nietsche et al took up this Critique and the the rest is history. The Committee for Cultural Freedom ,CIA funded, rode that horse into town.
Ironically, both Poets are dismissed – who needs any poetry at all? Yet so many bow to Kant in the hallowed halls of academia, they simply can’t deal with their own judgement – they have lost creative reason, the very symptom of the Critique.
Only Heine can express this.
WT* does ANY of that have to do with math?
A professor named John McWorter has been making the observation that anti-racism is becoming a new religion:
“Critical race theory, referenced in recent Executive statements by the President of the United States, is an established social science inquiry which is grounded in decades of scholarship. It is misguided, at best[.]”
They should have stopped where I put the period.
Critical Theory is a mental tool kit for twisting reality into the shape of any chosen paradigm.
You even wonder, is this a hoax all the way?