Monday, June 27, 2005
Making My Blood Boil
Found this on Opinionjournal over the weekend.
Mathematics is the last purely objective language. It is the one place where argument involves actual and irrefutable proof. I realize that many will never understand this, but there is little more beautiful in the world than a short, elegant and very profound mathematical proof.
Besides, mathematics is not the property of western civilization. It's ultimate roots are in ancient Persia, but much of it was borrowed from other sources including China, India and the Mayans. Math is not a cultural phenomena, but a natural one. It is born not out of ideas, but out of pure description.
Arithmitic -- that is the branch of mathematics associated with counting things -- was born out of a very practical need, commerce. But mathematics as a whole was born out of a desire to describe what was happening in the universe around us.
Calculus, seemingly born of Newton and Liebnez, is found in some forms more anciently. It is not a cultural statement, but rather the only way possible to describe the fundamentals of motion in the macroscopic universe.
Only someone with no understanding of mathematics or its history could be so ignorant as to propose something like "ethnomathematics." I have to calm down before I can say anything sensible about how to combat this trend, but combat it we MUST!
Those were the days of innocent dumbing-down. Now mathematics is being nudged into a specifically political direction by educators who call themselves "critical theorists." They advocate using mathematics as a tool to advance social justice. Social justice math relies on political and cultural relevance to guide math instruction. One of its precepts is "ethnomathematics," that is, the belief that different cultures have evolved different ways of using mathematics, and that students will learn best if taught in the ways that relate to their ancestral culture. From this perspective, traditional mathematics--the mathematics taught in universities around the world--is the property of Western civilization and is inexorably linked with the values of the oppressors and conquerors. The culturally attuned teacher will learn about the counting system of the ancient Mayans, ancient Africans, Papua New Guineans and other "nonmainstream" cultures.I am unsure where to even begin to rant about this atrocity.
Mathematics is the last purely objective language. It is the one place where argument involves actual and irrefutable proof. I realize that many will never understand this, but there is little more beautiful in the world than a short, elegant and very profound mathematical proof.
Besides, mathematics is not the property of western civilization. It's ultimate roots are in ancient Persia, but much of it was borrowed from other sources including China, India and the Mayans. Math is not a cultural phenomena, but a natural one. It is born not out of ideas, but out of pure description.
Arithmitic -- that is the branch of mathematics associated with counting things -- was born out of a very practical need, commerce. But mathematics as a whole was born out of a desire to describe what was happening in the universe around us.
Calculus, seemingly born of Newton and Liebnez, is found in some forms more anciently. It is not a cultural statement, but rather the only way possible to describe the fundamentals of motion in the macroscopic universe.
Only someone with no understanding of mathematics or its history could be so ignorant as to propose something like "ethnomathematics." I have to calm down before I can say anything sensible about how to combat this trend, but combat it we MUST!
