The UK Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, which reviews university courses, recently asked universities to decolonise their mathematics courses. Several UK universities are already busy decolonising chemistry courses. Decolonisation of science is only one example of several ways universities now genuflect to sociopolitical ideologies, based on critical theory, which is highly critical of science-based thinking.
I find arguments advocating decolonisation of science difficult to penetrate, but here is what I think they mean. Modern science is a construct of white western paradigms of knowledge and seeks to explain the nature of the universe on the basis of reason alone. Science sees itself as the only legitimate method of knowing, an attitude that is both flawed and totalitarian. Europeans once colonised the world physically and, now that physical colonisation is over, continue to dominate the world by promoting the European paradigm of rational knowledge. Decolonisation of science calls on science to acknowledge that its knowledge is only partial and is dominated by a western mindset.
Much critical theory criticism seems to be based on a misunderstanding of science. The function of science is to investigate how the natural physical world works. Science partly achieves success by ignoring large areas of great importance to human experience. For example, science has nothing to say about values, morals, aesthetics, the supernatural, literature and so on, areas that make life worth living for many people. How then can critical theorists say “science sees itself as the only legitimate way of knowing”, or how would critical theorists propose understanding the natural physical world except “on the basis of reason alone”?
Of course, science is not immune from criticism. For example, some very influential scientists claim that science has the capacity to eventually explain everything that exists — scientism. But, this is not the position of mainline science.
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Returning specifically to the decolonisation of mathematics, colonialism has nothing to do with mathematics — the Mayans developed sophisticated mathematics long before Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) discovered the American continent in 1492.
And, as regards the European paradigm of rational knowledge, such knowledge is not unique to Europe — rational knowledge is universal. For example, the digits 01234568789 universally used today were first written in India, inspired by Chinese mathematics. Popularised by Arab and Persian mathematicians, these digits made their way to Europe when the Moors invaded Spain in 711 and, by 1300, replaced the cumbersome Roman numerals previously used in Europe.
Proponents of the decolonisation of science call for acknowledgement that some famous scientists personally harboured unacceptable opinions
Modern science began and developed in Europe, dating from the work of Copernicus (1473-1543). It is unknown why modern science began in Europe and not, say in China, although it is certainly not because Europeans have a unique aptitude for science. One possible reason why modern science sprang up in Europe was that Europe was Christian.
How Christianity thinks about the world has four important consequences: Christians expect the world to be orderly because the Creator is rational and consistent, yet free to create the universe whichever way He chooses; we can’t understand the nature of the universe just by thinking about it — observation and experiment are essential; the world is worthy of study because it is God’s creation; the creation itself is not divine, so we can investigate it without impiety. These four features established an appropriate intellectual setting in which science could take off.
Proponents of the decolonisation of science call for acknowledgement that some famous scientists personally harboured unacceptable opinions. For example, statistician Francis Galton (1822-1911) founded racist eugenics and mathematician Isaac Newton (1642-1727) invested money in the South Sea company (losing his shirt!) that dealt in the slave trade. But nobody hides such facts. For example, I recently highlighted Galton’s work on eugenics in this column. Do the critical theorists highlight the coyness of European left-wing liberalism on Stalin’s atrocities?
Decolonisers of science also call for more acknowledgement of significant contributions to science from non-western scientists. Fair enough, this would help in highlighting role models for non-western children. However, I see no reluctance to acknowledge non-European contributions in any history of science I have read, such as Science: A Four Thousand Year History by Patricia Fara (Oxford University Press, 2009). And, on this page, Prof Peter Lynch has described the rich Indian tradition in mathematics. And, of course, Chinese and Japanese science is booming.
- William Reville is an emeritus professor of biochemistry at UCC