Red Mosquito

It’s still paywalled as far as I can see, so I googled the topic and found another article about the same event.

B wrote:

He who controls the present now, controls the past.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/20 ... g-history/

She added: "A lot of the talk of the decolonisation is actually removing those elements, it's not about packing in extra into history.

"And when you look at people that are saying that our study is wrong in the UK, you don't often hear them talking about just enriching the sources that are used for students to study from it, it's about removing certain texts and books and replacing them with alternatives.

So, ... we need to make sure people read all of Mein Kampf before they judge the Holocaust too harshly?

McParadigm wrote:

Engineering students could soon be learning about how Sir Isaac Newton 'benefited from colonialism'

The eminent 17th Century physicist, mathematician and astronomer, who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time, held shares in the South Sea Company, which traded in slaves.

While studying the ocean tides, he required tidal readings from around the world.

According to ScienceMag, some of the most important readings he acquired came from French slave ports in the Caribbean island of Martinique.

James Delbourgo, a historian at Rutgers University, New Jersey, said: 'Newton himself, who's really the paradigm figure of an isolated, non-traveling, sitting-at-his-desk genius, had access to numbers he wouldn't have had access to without the Atlantic slave trade.'.

Imagine being scared of people talking about this. Pathetic.

It might be germane in a class about the history of science and discovery but is neither here nor there regarding Newton as a person or scientist.

B wrote:So, ... we need to make sure people read all of Mein Kampf before they judge the Holocaust too harshly?

No, though without the historical context of the Weimar Republic it's impossible to understand how Germany got to the point where the Holocaust could happen, but that's not the point is it? The criticism is that in an attempt to de-colonize (not be more representative of global achievements, a good thing, but instead have "equitable" history) we run into points at which the great achievements of the time were made by European men. So rather than separating the discovery from the discoverer, as one would expect in a physics or engineering class, it's now become important assert a prescriptive perspective on the discoverer alongside their achievement. As if the legitimacy of the second law of thermodynamics is somehow influenced by the fact that Newton held stock in a business that utilized slave labor. It's been thought (hoped) that science would be able to stay objective, stay rationale, and stay clear of CRT nonsense, but as the 2+2=5 commotion last year made clear nothing is safe from the Party.

Bi_3 wrote:So rather than separating the discovery from the discoverer, as one would expect in a physics or engineering class

I 100% agree that there is little to no reason to spend college-level physics lesson time explaining who Isaac Newton was, full stop.

The content as described in the article would be more appropriately placed in a middle school history lesson, where enlightenment discoveries and the impacts of the slave trade are common unit themes.

Yeah, you're still talking about 3000 feet over my head.

I guess I don't know what decolonization means. When I google it I get literal decolonization, which is clearly not what you're panicking about here.

So, I'm teaching thermodynamics, and I talk about Newton's contributions, but I say "Newton did this while benefiting from the money he made from the slave trade"?

B wrote:Yeah, you're still talking about 3000 feet over my head.

I guess I don't know what decolonization means. When I google it I get literal decolonization, which is clearly not what you're panicking about here.

So, I'm teaching thermodynamics, and I talk about Newton's contributions, but I say "Newton did this while benefiting from the money he made from the slave trade"?

No, he benefitted from information that was only available because it was coming from ports that were predominantly used for slave trading. The thinking is without the slave trading these ports wouldn’t have been connected to the rest of the world, so the data would not be available. It’s a slim excuse to put the blame on colonialism.

So, we're teaching the engineers all the same information, but making some of the scientists out to be dicks or hacks b/c they were bad people by modern standards?



Yeah. I don't care.

So we’re canceling Sir Isaac Newton?

He was cancelled in 1727.

B wrote:So, we're teaching the engineers all the same information, but making some of the scientists out to be dicks or hacks b/c they were bad people by modern standards?

Well, not dicks or hacks as no one cares about that, but racists and colonialists. That's an entirely different thing. And maybe you should as this is how Soviet-style erasure of history occurs, they start by staining the enemy:

"We can and must write in a language that inspires hate, revulsion and scorn toward those who disagree with us." - Lenin

In this case the enemy is not Newton as an individual, but objectivity as a whole.

No one's teaching it to alienate their enemies. They're teaching it because they WERE racists and colonialists. Maybe that's poor time management for the class, but I can't bring myself to care.

Bi_3 wrote:In this case the enemy is not Newton as an individual, but objectivity as a whole.

Wait whose enemy

List the civilizations throughout history that did not utilize slave labor.

Bammer wrote:List the civilizations throughout history that did not utilize slave labor.

CHOP

B wrote:No one's teaching it to alienate their enemies. They're teaching it because they WERE racists and colonialists. Maybe that's poor time management for the class, but I can't bring myself to care.

If it doesnt matter to the students perception of the scientists that they were racists and colonialists, why are they teaching it? What is the motive behind the decision to teach it?

If a racist cures cancer someday you have to ignore the treatment unless he/she/them passes grade when put under the crucible that is "Doez CarE SKin BrOwn OR Whyte!!!?"

Bammer wrote:List the civilizations throughout history that did not utilize slave labor.

Why? Almost all of history is people and countries doing things that other people and countries did too. What’s the point of this question?

If it doesnt matter to the students perception of the scientists that they were racists and colonialists, why are they teaching it? What is the motive behind the decision to teach it?

Unless it is a science history course, I don’t know why they feel the need to talk about Isaac Newton *as a person* at all. You don’t sign up for college math to learn about the life of d'Alembert, and you don’t sign up for physics to learn about the life of Isaac Newton. They could easily cover the calculus of their discoveries without so much as mentioning their names (in the case of d'Alembert, they generally do just that).

If it is a science history course, well then you have your answer. It’s a part of the history of the discovery.

Bi_3 wrote:

B wrote:No one's teaching it to alienate their enemies. They're teaching it because they WERE racists and colonialists. Maybe that's poor time management for the class, but I can't bring myself to care.

If it doesnt matter to the students perception of the scientists that they were racists and colonialists, why are they teaching it? What is the motive behind the decision to teach it?

Because it's college, and you learn about shit. Sometimes shit you need to know, some times about things you don't need to know, sometimes things you think you don't need to know, but turn out to matter later.

If colleges are spending seconds teaching something that isn't specifically relevant to the applications of engineering, but is nonetheless true .... *violent shrug*