STEM Needs no "Decolonization"

Dismantle the (Entirely Western) Concept of "Decolonization"

I am delighted to present this guest post by Helen Pluckrose. She first wrote it as a comment on one of evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne’s posts on his excellent blog site, Why Evolution is True. His entry was a critique of a ridiculous paper titled, “Dismantling the master's house: Decolonizing “Rigor” in psychological scholarship” published in the once-upon-a-time respectable Journal of Social Issues. And if you think that is too harsh, consider just the final sentence of their abstract:

• “In exploring the ways that the language of “rigor” furthers a European conception of knowledge production as normative, this manuscript provides a critical analysis that seeks to redress ongoing epistemic colonial violence by decolonizing a key term in psychological scholarship.”

Though the whole paper is a target-rich environment, perhaps my “favorite” line is this:

• …the “validity” of the colonizer requires the non-validity of the colonized.”

This is all evidence-free critical theory dogmas and absurdities (“critical analysis,” “espistemic colonial violence” etc.).

Although Dostoevsky never said this, it applies.

But hey, this is the new normal in academia and it is gaining rapidly in psychology. I’d rather not keep having my prediction that this will continue to get worse before it gets worse confirmed, but academia is what it is, my preferences notwithstanding. Jerry Coyne posted Helen’s comment as a stand-alone but my sense is that many of my readers are not likely to be familiar with his blog and I wanted to give it as much play as possible.

Helen is a longstanding defender of liberal values against illiberalism on both the left and the right. She is a founder of Counterweight, which provides analysis of illiberal trends and support for those victimized by them. She is also an author of the original Grievance Studies Sting, which was a revelation of the depths of the political corruption of social sciences and humanities.

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By Helen Pluckrose

It is absolutely essential that we make more people aware of this aspect of the “Decolonise” movement, in particular. I don’t think I have ever seen anything more imperialist than claiming STEM to be white & Eurocentric. Complete ahistorical nonsense that can only be written by someone who has never had to try to work with the “maths” that existed before Europe adopted Arab numerals and maths. As a late medievalist, let me inform you that trying to do maths working in 7s over 20s in Roman numerals as Europeans did before this is a primary reason for so many calculations of anything from that period being wrong.

Aside from it being factually wrong to claim STEM to be white & Western, it is an insult to all the doctors, scientists & engineers the Western world needs to recruit from Africa and Asia to keep those fields running. If all the Indian, Nigerian and Pakistani Brits left for their former homelands or that of their parents and grandparents, the NHS would collapse, engineering would struggle and we’d be much diminished in output in science more broadly. As I have had to point out to anybody insisting that my critiques of fields using the approaches of Critical Social Justice are just a way to attack the work of “people of colour,” if that were actually my motivation, it would be medicine and technology I’d have to critique, not CSJ, as this is where black and brown Brits are most represented.

STEM, objectivity, rigour and replicability are not products of the West. Postmodernism and its latest incarnation “Critical Social Justice,” however, are. If you want to ‘decolonize’ Western “ways of knowing,” start by weeding out that one, not the development of science which has been a worldwide project for millennia, although Europe was a relative latecomer to it.

Meera Nanda is your best source for opposing the false claim that science is a Western phenomenon and that it needs decolonising.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150108438770

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That ends Helen’s essay, but for good measure:

Obaid Omer can be found doing terrific interviews at his Dangerous Speech Podcast, and on Twitter.

Shown is only a piece of a much longer thread pointing out the misguided (putting it mildly) nature of ongoing attempts to “decolonize” rigor, objectivity, free speech, hard work, reason, logic, science and math. Many of you may be familiar with this classic 19th century quote by John Stuart Mill:

This is the brilliant Islamic scholar and scientist, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham, writing almost 1000 years earlier:

Free speech and open inquiry are the foundations of sound science. Unquestionable sacred dogmas, and the response of demonizing, denouncing, and punishing those who challenge them (including social non-govt punishments) are the enduring enemies of both freedom and science. Freedom and its suppression have been interminably interlocked in an endless battle that has ebbed and flowed for centuries, with, sometimes, oppression having the upper hand and, at others, freedom.

As always, there is, sometimes, some grain of truth in some of these postmodern/critical social justice “decolonial” perspectives.¹ When there is actual discrimination against or exclusion of any particular demographic, national or ethnic group, whether in science or anything else, it is an injustice and active steps should be taken to prevent it (such as blind review, which ensures against injustice, even though it does not ensure equal outcomes, but that is a topic for another day).

Also, there are good reasons for exerting some efforts to acknowledge and even highlight non-European contributions to Enlightenment ideas and rigorous science. I bet far more of you knew about Mills than about ibn-Haytham. But, especially as a teacher and college professor, there are huge benefits of highlighting such contributions:

• to students from similar backgrounds, it says, “Wow, someone like me not only stood for these values, but, in some ways, got there first!”

• Not everything in education or science needs to be tailored to every group. But that is the beauty of highlighting scholars and scientists who have, sometimes, been mostly overlooked. It says to all students, not just those from the same group as the highlighted scholar, “these are broadly-held principles and values and are not unique to, owned by, or “colonized by” any one group. Some, like open inquiry, rigor and logic in science, and free speech in the wider society, are worth promoting as universal values, because, really, what are the serious alternatives? Illogic? Emotion? Sloppy science? Repression?

In this spirit, allow me to highlight:

You can read the full article here.

And modern day human rights champion, the Danish-African Jacob Mchangama, whose podcast shown here is absolutely brilliant.

Decolonize this? Disrupt this? Dismantle this?

I am tempted to ask rhetorically, “WTF are they thinking?” But really, who cares what they are thinking? And does it deserve to even be referred to as “thinking”?

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Footnote

1. “grain of truth to postmodern…” Please do not read too much in this. There are “grains of truth” in most conspiracy theories, too (Qanon, a conspiracy of powerful pedophiles seeking to rule the world? Ridiculousness wrapped around some grains of truth — Jeffrey Epstein & his enablers, the Catholic priest scandals, etc.).