{"id":236733,"date":"2022-12-29T19:02:27","date_gmt":"2022-12-29T18:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=236733"},"modified":"2022-12-29T19:02:30","modified_gmt":"2022-12-29T18:02:30","slug":"decolonizing-attack-on-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=236733","title":{"rendered":"Decolonizing Attack on Science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Science Matters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rex Murphy writes at National Post Science does not need to be \u2018decolonized\u2019. <\/strong><\/a> Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does Concordia University wish to be an instrument of learning, or a funnel for wokeness?<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scholars at Montreal\u2019s Concordia University<\/strong> are planning to trace and counter what they say<\/strong> is colonialism in physics<\/strong>, which they describe as a \u201csocial field\u201d rather than one of \u201cpure knowledge.\u201d<\/strong> \u2014 True North, Campus Watch<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would a person decolonize<\/strong> penicillin? Or anesthesia? Or open-heart surgery? Or the miracle advances<\/strong> the past century gave the world through the understandings \u2014 still not complete \u2014 of quantum physics?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, you would have to ask the question:\u00a0what could \u201cdecolonize\u201d even mean<\/strong>\u00a0in these miracle domains?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(I use miracle<\/strong> here only as metaphor<\/strong>, or in its now weaker and more normal usage as an advance scarcely dreamed of but brought on by science,<\/strong> science which is the application of mind, of intellect \u2014 not politics \u2014 to the understanding of nature.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientific truth is the truth of bare fact. The only reverence science knows is the genuflection before hard, physical reality<\/strong>. Science wears no ribbons of fealty to causes, colours or the predispositions of any mentality or ideology, other than the asking of questions and the submission to the answers provided by absolutely neutral inquiry<\/strong> \u2014 answers always tentative, always open to revision or correction; science is never final.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Short form: Science does not wear badges.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been instances where science has been forced to wear a political coat.<\/strong> A certain regime in Germany during the 1930s<\/strong>, under the tenure of a racist madman, declared that there was no such a thing as \u201cJewish\u201d science.<\/strong> And, therefore, it was innately false, to be banned<\/strong>, alas along with the great Jewish scientists.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Einstein was Jewish, therefore he was wrong,
has to have been the most warped equation ever.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was in Hitler\u2019s imperium, room for only \u201cAryan\u201d science.<\/strong> And there was the deadly flaw<\/strong>. Science allows no qualifying epithets, no qualificatory precedent adjectives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(I dare say Whoopi Goldberg<\/a> doesn\u2019t know this, but then, there is much that Whoopi Goldberg doesn\u2019t know. That\u2019s why she\u2019s on The View.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communism in the hard days of ruthless Stalin also had a Marxist \u201cline\u201d on what science had to be<\/strong>. In both cases, radical and totalitarian regimes tried to subdue thought itself, the functioning of intellect, to their grim, idiotic and malign ideologies.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science is science, and it is only science, or it is not\u00a0science: with any limiting descriptive it is just a rigged machine for producing approved results<\/strong>. Politics acts on science as an acid to truth: it distorts inquiry and banishes rigour and dispassion \u2014 the core qualities of science.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So let me curl back to the otiose question of \u201cdecolonizing\u201d science. What can Concordia possibly mean<\/strong> by such a project?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the university, directly or indirectly, saying that the manifold revelations<\/strong> brought about by adherence to scientific methodology, since the days of Isaac Newton<\/strong> \u2014 the premier figure in the advance of empirical thought \u2014 are wrong?<\/strong> Is Concordia saying Western science is bent by racial considerations and thereby should be dismissed?<\/strong> Side-stepped? Layered over?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does the university agree with the judgment that since science is \u201ccolonized,\u201d it must be \u201ccorrected?\u201d That E = mc\u00b2, perhaps the most basic equation of the whole universe, proceeds from a \u201ccolonialist\u201d mentality?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Is it saying that because much,<\/strong> but by no means all, of the science came from people with a certain colour of skin<\/strong> \u2014 that would be white \u2014 it is therefore not only fallible but an imposition of \u201ccolonial\u201d understanding<\/strong> on young minds, whatever that ridiculous phrase may be taken to mean?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concordia has a fairly well known project called\u00a0Decolonizing light.<\/strong>\u00a0And what could that mean? Does it challenge the speed limit of the universe, that light travels at 186,000 miles per second?\u00a0What alternative measurement is it offering<\/strong>\u00a0from its decolonized science?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And most pertinently how can it be that a university<\/strong> \u2014 an institution for the transmission of knowledge and truth \u2014 would bend to the woke notions of our over-politicized times<\/strong> and offer that the progress of scientific truth is but one more unfolding of \u201cimperialist,\u201d \u201ccolonizing\u201d white thought?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speak up Concordia. Or trim your fees.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are few things that offer more despair in these fad-ridden times than the\u00a0easy, cowardly concessions to racial and ethic politicization by (once) prestigious institutions.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Penicillin works. Anesthesias have saved millions from pain. The second law of thermodynamics has no reference to race or creed. The scientific method is the very closest attempt in all of history to remove all prejudice<\/strong>, of any kind, from the attempt to answer any question. Its kernel, its very ultimate idea, is submission to what is really seen, what is really there, what is really to be understood.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most important of all, the colour of the skin of a discoverer has no bearing on the discovery.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You cannot \u201cdecolonize\u201d science, because science has no colonies,<\/strong> it wishes none, and would lose all verity if it owed any allegiance<\/strong> except to cold observation, relentless questioning,<\/strong> and the utter exclusion of secondary impulses, most particularly those of race and activism.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concordia has a choice to make, a choice many other universities must also face.\u00a0Does it wish to be an instrument of learning, or a funnel for the trite obsessions of a very particular moment?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Short form: Science does not wear badges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":236734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-236733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","9":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/0Screenshot-2022-12-29-185159.png?fit=833%2C555&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-ZAh","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":235790,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=235790","url_meta":{"origin":236733,"position":0},"title":"Academics pursue project to \u2018Decolonize Physics\u2019","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"23\/12\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cThis is why I have so much contempt for those, including many liberals, who \u201cjust want the data.\u201d The data is racist!\u201d","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-738.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-738.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-738.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-738.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-738.png?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":365905,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=365905","url_meta":{"origin":236733,"position":1},"title":"Teardrops at the National Science Foundation","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/02\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"WTF is a \u201chigher education lobbyist?\u201d And who pays his or her salary? 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