Watch Leftist Students Say Science Is Racist and Should Be Abolished
University of Cape Town movement says witchcraft is no less valid than Isaac Newton's theory of gravity.


Students at the University of Cape Town in South Africa brought some interesting concerns before the science faculty this week: namely, they think science as it is currently understood must be abolished.
"The whole thing should scratched off, especially in Africa," said one of the students.
The students are apparently known as "fallists." Their hashtag is #ScienceMustFall. You can watch them make their case during a meeting here.
Essentially, these students believe that modern scientific understanding is too Eurocentric. One explained:
"I have a question for all the science people. There is a place in KZN called Umhlab'uyalingana. They believe that through the magic' you call it black magic' they call it witchcraft' you are able to send lightening to strike someone. Can you explain that scientifically because it's something that happens?"
Many people laughed at this remark because, well, witchcraft is not something that happens. But according to the student, witchcraft is like Isaac Newton's theory of gravity—it's just one way of explaining the world, among many.
"Decolonising the science would mean doing away with it entirely and starting all over again to deal with how we respond to the environment and how we understand it," the student continued.
Down with science: coming to an American university near you? It wouldn't surprise me.
Ideally, universities are the perfect vehicle for reforming idiotic views about science. Let's hope Cape Town is up to challenge of explaining why concerns about social justice should not lead students to reject the theory of gravity.
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Well let us have a fight. They can bring their witchcraft. I will bring my Glock.
Engineering is just applied science etc.
Exactly. I will apply my chemistry and physics in the form of my Glock vs whatever these stupid fucks think they have to bear.
Aren't they saying though that they could bring a glock and fire it too; but what really makes it fire is ancestral voodoo not chemistry and physics or whatever other white, eurocentric, patriarchy you substitute for them.
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Complete voodoo
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good baster at your side, kid.
What's the old saying? Don't bring a baster to a knife fight/ Something like that.
Careful, they might strike you down with lightning.
Firearms are just applied Physics.
For my .45, applied at a speed of 950 fps.
Personally more of a 9mm guy.
Applied science
Science and STEM majors hardest hit.
Sorry, I missed the relevance to libertarianism?
The relevance is to reason, which is a core part of libertarianism in my view.
Amusing story about young lefties trying to punish something outside their world view or remove it.
Also a nice rebuttal to the whole "only the right is an enemy of science" narrative.
Most anti-vaxxers are leftists-see Marin County, CA
Not true. LRC is anti-vax, for example.
Fuck off Tulpa
Me too.
This is my first time on reason.com. Are the articles here normally sensationalist and click-baity like this?
For example what's with the weird "leftist" generalization? Like was that necessary for the article? I don't know a single self-identified "leftist" who wants to dismantle science ed like this.
This place reminds me of Breitbart. How many people here also use that site?
"Are the articles here normally sensationalist and click-baity like this?"
Are you referring to all the Trump-bashing articles?
No, this one.
You're discovering the opposite of the people here who think Reason is literally the same as the Huffington Post.
No, clearly Reason is literally the same as Alternet.
Or literally the same as your senile mother.
It's almost like right-wingers think Reason is too lefty and left-wingers think Reason is too righty. Then there are the libertarians, who fly with two wings.
The vast majority of complaints about Reason being too lefty aren't really based in political values or policy differences, it's complaints about culture. Reason writers on the whole have a more leftward cultural background than rightward, while a lot of the commenters have strong rightward cultural preferences.
Reason writers, deliberately or not, give off more lefty cultural signals than righty ones. In return the offended commenters signal hard how much more culturally rightwing they are.
In fairness though, our culture is stalked by left-wing bullies who will unashamedly seek to destroy people for treading on hallowed ground without sufficient deference. Left wing signalling is a necessary form of covering one's ass if your job is making posts on the internet with your name attached to them, whenever touching on anything related to gender, race, republican candidates, etc.
Not sure what the corresponding right wind topics are, since I don't generally follow that tiny subset of the media/internet.
That's mostly true about being libertarian. It makes you way too left-wing for right-wingers and shockingly right-wing to lefties. I for one take some pride in pissing off the idiots in both teams.
+1 FYTW
I'm fairly new here too.
I don't know about Reason being too righty or lefty, but I do see cultural identification with the center-left among the writers, if not an ideological one. Right wingers and their views are definitely othered.
To be honest I'm finding the comments far more witty and erudite than most of the articles.
"...the comments section on Reason's "Hit 'n Run" rivals Yahoo! News for being the worst hive of scum and villiany on the Internet...." -- RationalWiki
My 2nd day checking this site out. Gotta love the comments.
How are all your mates on the Filthy Whore, eh Fancylad? Fairing well I hope.
8/10.
Haha gotcha. That's a lot.
Are you one of them?
😉
^Tulpa
Maybe, but certainly attention-whore troll.
Clintrump is about 2/10.
I find the term 'leftist' very appropriate in this article. They certainly aren't liberal.
But what that does word even mean to this author?
The author apparently has very distinct definition in mind, and assumes his readers will know exactly what he's talking about. I sure don't.
That's what reminds of Breitbart or other "news" sites that cater to a niche group. They've got their group's fun code vocab they deploy whenever they need to put down another group they disagree with. Like the way the word "feminist" might get used in certain circles, that's what this reminds me of. Then gets substituted for "femininazis" or whatever, in the same conversation.
Someone else in this thread used the word "lefties" interchangeably, instead of "leftists."
Does what I'm trying to get at make sense?
The way people described and recommended this site to me didn't prepare me for an article like this.
I mean should I be cutting some slack since this is the "blog" section?
"The way people described and recommended this site to me didn't prepare me for an article like this."
To be fair, nothing can truly prepare you for the phantasmagoria of fun that is Reason.com.
But I think if you check out a few articles, you'll see some material which probably wouldn't appear on Breitbart.
But you may want to avoid reading the comments.
You are using "articles" when you mean "comments", and "comments" when you mean "articles".
Not. The comments are better than the articles, unless you require some kind of safe space.
"Phantasmagoria of fun."
I'll keep that phrase in mind!
*Funtasmagoria. do you even vocab, broh?
Suck my avocados. in the original Nahuatl sense of the word.
Seriously and without sarcasm, you should take it at face value and see that, like everywhere, there is an editorial position or positions here that more or less comport with a libertarian philosophy. Take a look around, think for yourself and decide if it is for you.
Robbies beat is crazy college stories.
I'm getting a whiff of stale Tulpa myself. Although, there may also be the aroma of Bo. Hard to say.
Oh, we definitely also have our fun code vocab here, Tulpa.
I agree with your comments cco.
The use of the term leftist is definitely clickbaity. Furthermore, the video needs more context. They seem to be arguing for the sake of argument - which is definitely encouraged in some of the liberal arts classes at university. It's good for discourse, right? It just so happens these people's thoughts on the matter are outdated.
I agree with your comments cco.
The use of the term leftist is definitely clickbaity. Furthermore, the video needs more context. They seem to be arguing for the sake of argument - which is definitely encouraged in some of the liberal arts classes at university. It's good for discourse, right? It just so happens these people's thoughts on the matter are outdated.
I agree with your comments cco.
The use of the term leftist is definitely clickbaity. Furthermore, the video needs more context. They seem to be arguing for the sake of argument - which is definitely encouraged in some of the liberal arts classes at university. It's good for discourse, right? It just so happens these people's thoughts on the matter are outdated.
You leave Robby alone!
C-
3/10
Too forced, didn't stick the landing, contrived, Brietbart reference was weak.
Pan Zagloba gave me 8/10
Rhywun C- (7/10)
MikeT1986 3/10
Final: 6/10.
Time to call it a day!
Grading scales are based around a mode around 7.5 being the average with tight standard deviations. Whereas a 1-10 scale properly uses 5 as an average, so Rhywun would be more akin to a 4.5/10
The outlier is Pan Zagloba.
He would have gotten a higher grade if he referenced Media Matters or Thinkprogress.
This place reminds me of Breitbart. How many people here also use that site?
You do realize the author of this piece writes for Breitbart as well, albeit under a different name.
Oh! No I didn't. Honestly I didn't.
That makes sense though.
For real?
Yes.
It's fairly common knowledge that he's one of the people writing under Milo Yannopulos byline.
To be clear, this is not true. I do not write for Breitbart and never have.
That's exactly what someone who writes for Breitbart would say.
'Common knowledge' refuted by the author? Burrrrrrn!
So your Hair does?
Way to ruin the joke. I'll try and come up with something even more absurd next time.
This whole thread is Charlie Sheening
Liar!!
Now why did you have to go and spoil the fun?
But under the name Jackie Coakley, isn't it.
Spittin' image of Milo.
Never figured it'd be so easy to get you into the comments
This place is like Breitbart plus 50-75 IQ points.
I doubt Breitbart will publish an article matter of factly stating Trump is guilty of sexual assault based on accusations alone or implying he is proof of rape culture.
Um, no. That would only put this place at 51-76 IQ points total.
@CCO, welcome to the party, I'd sum up Reason by saying that yes some articles are more click baity and some are true examples of hard nosed journalism. They cast a wide net, everyone here enjoys some of the material while scoffing at other things. I recommend taking a look at a few different articles from different authors.
It's the interesting problem considering two qualities of this site:
1) Reason often calls out media for creating doom-saying articles, purely to draw attention, effectively mocking the clickbaity articles.
2) Reason.com still needs to produce some amount of articles every weekday.
They are doomed to the same issues that plague other sites. The trick is probably to just take everything with a grain of salt. Which, if you want to take any single value from Libertarianism, it's take stuff with a grain of salt.
Or more or less ignore the articles and only come for the comments. The commenters are often more sensible, informative, and entertaining. And since I myself am a commenter, you know you can trust my opinion on the matter. QED.
Now go out there and kill Hitler.
"Now go out there and kill Hitler."
The Secret Service is gonna investigate you now that you've threatened a presidential candidate. Your saving grace is they don't know which one you threatened.
Baby Hitler or adult Hitler
While many articles are click-bait and some are unhinged, they also publish many good, thoughtful pieces as well. I for one like the articles by Bailey, Harsanyi, de Rugy, and a few others whose names escape me at the moment but that I read when I recognize the byline. But it is true that some of the commenters are top quality as well and could be writing their own articles better than some of what gets posted here.
You know who else would go out and kill Hitler?
Which, if you want to take any single value from Libertarianism, it's take stuff with a grain of salt.
That would explain the high blood pressure that plagues libertarians.
Well, I've never met a conservative, libertarian, or scientist who actually hates black people or women, but major news outlets run stories almost daily contending at all three groups are rife with racism and misogyny, so why shouldn't we reciprocate?
"This place reminds me of Breitbart. How many people here also use that site?"
The author specializes in writing stories about leftists who claim to have been raped, but weren't, and children who've been sent home from school by leftists for wearing inappropriate t shirts. (though he usually doesn't have to go as far as Africa to fill his quota of verbiage.) This is his first stab at leftists trying to ban science, so should give him a break.
That's because you are simply unfamiliar with the ideological underpinnings of modern social justice theory, namely the Frankfurt school, aka neo-Marxism and critical theory. These ideologies are unapologetically leftists, and their adherents from a large part of the Democratic base and the modern progressive movement. "Dismantling science like this" is very much a part of these ideologies, even if many supporters of Democrats and progressivism can't connect the dots.
Obvious troll is obvious.
They can never take our Freedom!
I missed the relevance to "leftists."
Because the people hating science there are leftists. Every time on the right (or even just pretending to be on the right) says something stupid it refeflects the right in your mind, so you kinda forfeit the right to complain here.
Because the views of those students are standard critical theory and Frankfurt school, long-standing left-wing ideologies, and views that in the US are at the heart of the Democratic party and US progressivism.
So, yes, these people are leftists, and they are anti-science. And that relationship is typical.
Witchcraft is the only thing keeping Guam from capsizing.
And if we stop believing in witchcraft Guam will float away and we'll never catch it.
I pray to zuul I raise my kids well enough to be immune from this nonsense when they get to college.
My oldest heads off to college next year.
Being that he's more of an anti-SJW than anything, I worry about him saying the wrong (probably right, but u know) thing to the wrong person & becoming a target.
Life was so simple when I was in college in the mid 90s
Don't worry. They are very kind people. They will teach him and he will learn. He will be embraced, and then he will understand.
I graduated in '94 when political correctness was just getting started on campus. I think its so bad now because all the PC extremists from then are now faculty and admins egging the new students on.
Oh, it started much earlier, namely when Horkheimer came to Columbia in the 1930's after the Nazis kicked him out of Germany for being a Marxist, and then returned to Frankfurt after the school. Critical theory received a major boost in the 1960's. Critical race theory started at US law schools in the 1980's. Feminists have also been challenging "positivistic male science" for a couple of decades.
I think the fall of the iron curtain has given these neo-Marxists a shot in the arm, both because it liberated a large number of die-hard leftists from behind the iron curtain, and because it removed the horrific failures of leftists ideology from daily view.
Critical theory these days, 'post-modernism,' is characterized by a rejection of Marx and Freud, and the project to marry the two. The Frankfurt school is pretty much a thing of the past.
They just want to be happy and ignorance is bliss.
How would your so-called "science" explain her hair, huh?
Got a Black Magic Woman
Now I feel awkward.
My work here is done.
Isn't this just: God said it was so, and it was so.
In a certain light it is a defensible position. Though I think that's the God * in arguments, it just doesn't fly as well for black magic.
If that's in Africa... then why is that girl white?
/Mean Girls
In all seriousness, this just further proves horseshoe theory. They sound like fundamentalist puritans but lack the self awareness to notice it.
You can't just ask why someone's white.....
Would would would.
Eww eww hmm, maybe
That's going to work out great for them.
Even Marx would be ashamed.
What have I done?!
I must renounce and repent!
Well, modern leftists are ashamed of Marx, which is why they don't call themselves "neo-Marxist" anymore, but adherents of "critical theory", the "Frankfurt school", and "progressivism".
You know, every now and then, I reread Atlas Shrugged. I'm doing so right now. As much as, when I was younger, I was willing to give some credence to the criticisms that Rand's villains were unrealistic, right now we see this.
It would be bad enough that some wayward savage claimed that there was no difference between a particle accelerator and a witchdoctor's ramblings. But, this is a university. Tell me with a straight face that you couldn't see this student's lines coming out of Floyd Ferris or Simon Pritchett?
You know, every now and then, I reread Atlas Shrugged.
Thoughts and prayers.
But seriously, you skip Galt's speech, right?
As everyone should. I ain't got that kinda time to re-read the same sentence 48,000 times.
I can't help but think that speech was written by Judge Napolitano.
I'd rate Atlas as one of my favorite books, and even I skip Galt's speech.
And again no Nobel Prize in Physics winners from Africa this year.
Well there's a shocker.
That's because of the white privilege patriarchy they favors males. If they were truly fair they'd have a category catering to Africa's strengths. Like Voodoo sciency.
And this years nobel prize for voodoo goes to .... some dude who successfully cured himself of aids by raping a 12 year old....
I just want to move there for about a year, so I can call myself an African American.
Let's hope Cape Town is up to challenge of explaining why concerns about social justice should not lead students to reject the theory of gravity.
The rules governing the safe space are concrete. Not so with those governing physics.
Sometimes students have something to teach the teachers. I think that was the plot to the Robin Williams film Dead Pets Society, which is set in a no-kill animal shelter if I remember correctly.
No, that was Poets Sematary where the dead poets came back to life after they were buried. Only changed. Different. Evil.
Man, when are we getting Poets Sematary 2: Kipling Reconquers the Raj?
Zombie T.S. Eliot returns to whine you to death.
The thing that is scarier than the fact they are doing this is that it was taught to them. I mean maybe there is no prof there preaching this exact thing, but that word salad that came out of this woman's mouth is the same line of word salad all these folk vomit out.
Nobody could come up with such nonsense on their own. Of course it is taught, probably from the first day of freshperson orientation.
Obama's father?
LOOK DAMNIT! I may be a ravenous eater of dead animals but this insulting of salad must stop.
A salad is comprised of several, usually fresh, ingredients that are proportioned to, ideally, compliment each other when eaten together. Add on a dressing and you can bring through a complex and flavorful dish that also has a cohesive gustatory appeal. A whole greater than the sum of its parts sort of thing. But without the intentional muddling of ingredients as in cooking.
So please, don't describe this verbal diarrhea as a "word salad", Galt's speach is a word salad...just not for those on a word diet.
"Decolonising the science would mean doing away with it entirely and starting all over again to deal with how we respond to the environment and how we understand it," the student continued.
Yes. Yes, it would. Have at it.
Maybe it would if " decolonising science" was not gibberish.
Science is one epistemology by which people make sense of their world, magic is another. Which they choose and in what situations and combinations is really a matter of what works best for them.
Competing epistemologies aren't the problem. The problem is when they use powerful social institutions to impose those epistemologies on other people.
Can't tell if troll, deeply profound, or simply stupid.
On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-profound Bullshit
It is if you have AIDS
Not even then. The problem arises if you choose the wrong epistemology.
I see this in our hospital from time to time. We get hardcore Jehovah's WItnesses who aren't even supposed to take a blood transfusion. They generally, after a ritualistic little dance, go with the sciencey epistomology (and take the transfusion), rather than the holy epistomology (and die).
You mean "powerful social institutions" like public education, public television, and public universities? Notice how all of those are leftist policies? As in so many other areas, we find that leftists are complaining about the very problems they themselves created.
Look how confident those students are in their stupidity.
Yes. After all, science is a method to question things and can make one all unsure of things and uncomfortable with untested assumptions!
There's something about cultural Marxism and it's brethren that encourages the breathtakingly stupid. I think it's flowery language and the poorly defined terms.
Hm. I can't seem to understand physical science. It must mean because science is racist. So I will make shit up to give the appearance I understand things and not all that retarded as science seems to suggest.
This place reminds me of Breitbart. How many people here also use that site?
It's not quite "For a site called reason" but I call that DRINK!worthy.
Robby Soave: the Breitbart SJW
DRINK!worthy
Indeed, seeing as it's Friday I feel as if I should oblige.
Indeed drinking a nice pale ale right now
You've earned it pal
You know the problem here really is the ever growing deification of science to replace god. It's become so all encompassing that people forget what it actually is. Science is nothing more or less than action that follows the steps of the scientific method.
No, silly, science is a mystical force which binds us together and makes us vote for Democrats.
Even the noted atheist Stephen Jay Gould came up with non-overlapping magisteria:
Science for the physical, empirical realm, and the religious for questions of meaning of existence etc.
I go to a doctor to cure cancer.
My fellow engineers and I use physics to better design and maintain nuclear power.
However, I "speak to my gods" to answer what does it mean to be a better person, think about what is good and evil, the afterlife (Valhalla if Odin so chooses) etc. I really couldn't care less what Richard Dawkins thinks about the meaning of life.
If these students want to try to curse people with spells or to gain wisdom through their folk pathways, go for it. Isn't going to change how fast they fall when they get pushed off the roof of the Engineering building.
Did you change your handle?
Bear, after I read your post a quote from Robert Heinlein came to mind:
"They say if you pray hard enough, you can make water run uphill. How hard do you have to pray? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!"
The funny thing is that they haven't deified science. The people who worship at the altar of "science" don't actually do anything scientific. It's a cult built around a false idol.
+1 Bill Nye Fanboy
But they Fucking Love Science! And Neil deGrasse Tyson!
Tyson is the other extreme. He seems to think because he's an astro-physicist he can go out and devise an entire world view as we saw with Rationalia. Through it we painfully see his philosophical short comings to say nothing about the fact his knowledge of history is suspect.
Down with science: coming to an American university near you?
Didn't we have that, already? Some goofy twat blabbering about the the patriarchal oppression of arithmetic, or some such whimwham.
And that feminist theory of glaciers.
They believe that through the magic' you call it black magic' they call it witchcraft' you are able to send lightening to strike someone.
Please demonstrate. I'm sure we'd all like to see it.
Hey, that happens.
People do get hit by lightning. It's true.
I just never knew before today that it was by design.
"University of Cape Town movement says witchcraft is no less valid than Isaac Newton's theory of gravity."
Cape Town ladies
Sing this song
Hoodoo
Hoodoo
Capetown race facts all gone wrong
All Hoodoo day
I read those lyrics "Blazing Saddles" style.
^Racist Tulpa
Your mom is racist, Tulpa!
She did read Mein Kampf to me as a child...
"What in the wide world of sports is going on here? Why are you prancing around like a bunch of Kansas City faggots?!"
Classic.
+1 Kansas City Faggot.
Is this using the Vox-definition of "explain"?
Clearly, Bill O'Reilly should have been a black South African instead of a white American when he made that comment about tides.
I think Bill would be more comfortable as a white South African, but your point still stands just like the tide that comes in and goes out.
Shut up, she explained.
Sure. Scientists would love to examine that. Let's go there and see if can be done and is reproducible.
Reproducibilty is inherently patriarchal. You need a sperm, DUH!
Can you explain that scientifically because it's something that happens?
Not without studying it. First we'll need to gather some data. Once we have documented enough directed lightning strikes, we'll get back to you.
I could mansplain it the way the ancestors of the people of Umhlab'uyalingana did, but Western Society outlawed that sort of thing decades if not centuries ago.
My mother always told me it wasn't nice to make fun of simpletons.
No kidding! Well, my Ma always said, "You gotta start young if you're gonna stick it out."
My mother didnt talk to me much
Especially simpletons with Sling Blades.
I call it a kaiser blade.
"I am not good at this thing, therefore this thing must not be valid."
I reject your "maths" and your "reason" and your "logic" and your "proofs" he explained. I believe as I wish. Now, I shall fly away and leave you to your pitiable reality.
Niiiiiice.
Bella roba.
Oh, so when someone said, "Uh, that's not true!", they all mobbed up and said, Now You Must Apologize
I really dont see these people debating Thomas Kuhn anytime soon
The only rational response is to walk out.
Actually, as a fucking coup, a modern AI-narrative company ought to feed in the works of Kant, Hume, Bacon, Descartes, etc. and it regurgitates the text in an African-centric SJW narrative and sell the copies under pseudonym.
I find this news a sign of the coming Apocalypse!
I think that these students would be better served by less science and more logic.
Simply put, they're sitting on mass produced chairs under electric lights that would not have been available to them had "Western" science not developed the technology necessary. They cannot see far enough beyond their grievances with colonialism to accept that science is a net benefit to their lives.
I eagerly await their return to huts and dung fires as a show of commitment to principles.
Exactly. Except there's a problem with teaching logic. More and more I'm hearing people who have no business talking or teaching logic espouse its importance. You can twist up logic as these idiots are doing with science.
For example, my wife was watching one of those female yapper shows and was frustrated with Joy Behar who was arguing with Jebediah Bila over the email scandal. Bila was making, in my wife's view, cogent points about how it's not a food thing what Hillary did and all Joy could do is rebut with a 'yeah but Trump!' This is a tu quoque is it not and it frustrates people and destroys civil and rational discourse.
Tu quoque is a fallacy. But you CAN have a perfectly sound logical argument that is wrong.
One easy way to start from the wrong assumption:
It has rained recently, and the street is wet.
The street is wet.
Therefore it has rained recently.
Spot the problem.
I think that these students would be better served by less science and more logic.
Less talking, more doing.
You want (us) to abandon Western scientific philosophy? Fine. Unless your plan is to eat people cooked by electrical energy, incantations to strike people with lightning bolts doesn't put food on the table. Discover or invent something that works better. We'll switch.
what is the problem that produces this symptom?
Modern "Western" philosophy
Well, this bit at least
http://www.iep.utm.edu/frankfur/
The witch craft is settled!
Decolonize your mind...
Whew. I don't even know how to begin with this.
Swing from vines, learn to communicate with animals, save white women from the wilds of the jungle... you know, the usual stuff a white man does when he decolonializes his mind.
Do you think a similar discussion ever occurs in a Chinese university setting?
It would only happen once.
"Do you think a similar discussion ever occurs in a Chinese university setting?"
Discussion isn't really a big part of life in a Chinese university classroom. Cape Town U may be more to your tastes.
LOL.
Should we bind them at the hands and feet ? with heavy rocked attached ? and throw them into a body of water? If they float to the surface, that is proof that they are indeed a witch. If they sink to the bottom, we will proclaim their innocence!
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of... no... wait....
Let's combine progspeak to take these guys down!!
As many progressives claim, much of Western science was invented by Muslims.
Therefore these people are vile Islamophobes!!
I would like to point out a problem with this approach. The African-American community overwhelming supports the left. The LGBT community overwhelmingly support the left. The African-American community overwhelmingly DOES NOT SUPPORT the LGBT.
tying your argument to one faction does not guarantee the support of another faction.
But according to the student, witchcraft is like Isaac Newton's theory of gravity?it's just one way of explaining the world, among many.
Do we assume Robby has learned that Newton practiced witchcraft and that the apple is, in all likelihood, somewhere between symbolic and apocryphal or no?
If they want to invent an African version of Newton who observed orangutans falling out of trees, by all means, have at it.
Perhaps they should try creating the elixir of life from elephant tusks.
They really ought to get in touch with Don Gillispie who can convert lightning into money through non-magical means. Though, then *they'd* apparently be oppressing this guy.
"The whole thing should scratched off, especially in Africa," said one of the students."
In many parts of Africa, it has been, so s/he's off to a good start.
I suspect DARPA would gladly pay you a handsome stipend if you really could call down lightning strikes upon your their enemies.
I worked on a couple of DARPA projects. They wouldn't pay shit. Their money comes from the DOD. Every penny spent on a DARPA project is scrutinized, and cataloged. I used to buy supplies at the local hardware store with my own money, just to avoid the bullshit paperwork that goes into getting a $1.69 bottle of contact cement out of them.
Is this supposed to be indicative of something larger?
Or is Robby just bashing rural Africans for being rural and African?
Or like most of Robby's pieces, does this not have any point at all?
Does anyone know?
Does anyone care?
?
Are these peoples le rural actually?
Throwing a lightning bolt at someone?
That is easy to explain. You tap a mountain for one red mana and hope your opponent has no counterspells.
I guess I should consider it a good day that Robby had to go to another continent to find some anecdote to smear all of liberalism with.
Stop selling yourself short. You're like a walking/talking smear on contemporary bourgeois leftism. Every breath you take is a celebration of smug stupidity! You should be proud.
Indeed, Don't sell yourself short Tony, you're a tremendous smear.
No, leftism. Liberalism is support for individual freedom in all realms of life. You're not a liberal, you're a leftist. Banning certain kinds of ninviolent speech and sending people to prison for cutting hair without paying tithe to the state for a license are leftist policies, and very illiberal policies.
Leftist =/= liberal. Increasingly they are opposites. I will make it a point to remind you of this until you get it.
They're just words. They mean whatever we want them to mean.
I'm a free speech absolutist and don't think anyone should be sent to prison for any reason, for what it's worth.
"They're just words. They mean whatever we want them to mean."
Yeah, and they denote concepts. 'Liberal' denotes individual freedom, per the latin root 'libera.' The modern progressive movement (or the original one in the early 1900s for that metter) has a strained relationship with individual freedom, to say the least.
In Europe, at least, the distinction is acknowledged. social democrats and socialists generally admit (or boast, depending on your attitude) that in may ways people shouldn't be allowed to make their own decisions and perpetual intervention and control by the state of economic decisions, sex acts, and even spoken and printed words is necessary to prevent society from degenerating into some hypothetical evil. 'Liberal' denotes, more or less what we would call 'libertarian' here. The distinction is an important one, and one lost in the one dimensional American political spectrum.
I... don't think anyone should be sent to prison for any reason, for what it's worth."
That's pretty bizarre. But I'm guessing you don't have the same respect for people's property rights as for their corporeal rights.
No, you just think they should be lined up and shot.
What do you do with murderers? Give them a stern talking to?
This video shows stupid and easily-manipulated people. I might be tempted to add, these pathetic children, only fit for servitude, but it would invite uncomfortable echoes of Kipling's burden. No, no, even thinking such things would be wrong.
even thinking such things would be wrong.
Welcome to one of your stopped-clock moments.
You, on the other hand, are more like a broken calendar.
This is parody right? April Fools falls in the Autumn in South Africa as it is in the Southern Hemisphere and the water in toilets goes backward.
So how do these students feel about Sir Isaac Newton's studies of the mystic arts?
You want to reject science and live with witchcraft? I invite you to it! Just leave town and go into a forest somewhere, and have fun. And btw don't bring your cell phone. It has accelerometers that use that colonizing gravity stuff.
University is a good place to question the limits of science. I disagree with Libertarians who would have that any knowledge that isn't stamped with the scientific seal of approval is illegitimate or false. This is verging on chauvinism.
Don't worry, libertarians are pretty shit with science.
We're not good with other people's "consensus".
Fortunately, that has nothing to do with science.
Of course not. Some crackpot with a blog can be more informed than the world's scientific community, just so long as you personally choose to believe him. Ah, rugged individualism.
Says Tony, who's definition of science = assenting to all the correct beliefs while shouting blasphemy at all who question consensus.
And I'm a scientist btw. I much prefer, say, someone who is wrong about global warming because they are genuinely critical of the evidence that some douchebag parrot who can regurgitate the right answer but can't defend it in the least but goes around saying 'I fucking live science.'
Also, let me know when you can explain to me why anti GMO leftists helping to starve people in third world countries today escape your ire so effectively? It's almost like you only care about scientific research when it suits your political purposes? Hmm, how curious.
The anti-GMO left is a fringe that is propped up in an attempt to falsely equate the left and right when it comes to science denial. I certainly want no part of them.
I am not a climate science expert. Neither is anyone else here. I'm one of the few who are willing to defer to the actual experts instead of random denier bloggers who serve as some kind of ideological security blanket.
Deniers are not "genuinely critical of the evidence" and don't deserve the title skeptic. They have their own alternative evidence and a set of preposterous, positive claims about how nature works that no serious researcher buys. The fact that it's an actual industry of propaganda funded for many years by energy interests and pushed by those interests' representatives in legislatures should make this all quite clear.
This is clearly a cultural issue with you. "I fucking love science." Those fucking hipsters!
As if the Hannity retards are the real intellectuals in this conversation. They're just being "skeptical," after all.
How exactly did this 'fringe' manage to get a bill advanced in the senate to mandate GMO labeling? Doesn't sound fringe to me.
"Deniers are not "genuinely critical of the evidence" and don't deserve the title skeptic."
Sure they do. Skepticism is skepticism, however little or much is warranted. And in so far as we are not all born with an innate belief in anthropogenic global warming, everyone should be a skeptic about it at some point in their life up to the point where they are presented with a convincing alternative case. And plenty of people have yet to be presented with such a case.
And such people should not be disdained for failing to defer to authority the way you do. Institutions are prone to corruption, and institutional consensuses are fallible. I'm surrounded here by people with high IQs in my department who, mostly being left of center, hold views which I know for a fact are irrational.
Take minimum wage for example. I'm certain I'm in the minority in my opposition to it. What would they say in defense of their support? "We want to help poor people." Maybe one or two has a response to my contentions about how min. wage is offset by disemployment and price increases, and none, I'm sure, have any familiarity with the literature on the subject. All hese smart people who believe something but can't really defend it against a lone heterodox view. One may say, it's not their field; still, how does a bunch of smarter than average people end up largely having an inaccurate opinion (even if you favor the minimum wage, as I expect you do, my example is still valid as these smart people didn't reach their support rationally, nor is their an economic consensus in favor of minimum wages to which they can defer). In the end, despite having higher than average IQs, in most (nearly all) political matters, they end up heeding the cultural milieu in which they were brought up and live about just as much as any uneducated country bumpkin, and as often as not, their defenses of their beliefs, save for a very small area in which they specialize, are hardly any more sophisticated.
"As if the Hannity retards..."
Your contempt wouldn't be so ironic if it weren't for the fact that on economic policy, you yourself flout the consensus among economists while preferring to defer to your own favorite anti-consensus left wing bloggers. Or is that different? The Koch bros. and whatnot?
The fact that you call anyone who questions the hypothesis a "denier" says everything about you and nothing about anyone else.
What would you prefer people be called who "call into question" firmly established facts? What do you call evolution deniers?
Um, I never hear anyone called an 'evolution denier.' Usually they're just called creationists, which is what they call themselves. The only other thing people are ever called 'deniers' for is the holocaust.
Irony, thy name is Tony.
Shut up, bitch, and make me a sandwich or im going to have my voodoo doctor lightning bolt you.
University is a good place to question the limits of science.
This isn't questioning the limits of science. This is thinly-veiled questioning the ethnicity of science which is essentially without ethnicity. It's a lamentation that when history rolled the dice for the 5-10,000 yrs. it came up Europe and N. America (and even Asia) rather than Africa. They want to throw out science because of it's Eurocentricity; ignoring the fact that the association between *Europe* and *Science* is tenuous or largely nominal.
Not unsurprisingly, Western culture has stories of people who can command electricity and some are even Africans. There hasn't been a wholesale abandonment of science in the West for this mysticism because it can't be positively jived with reality and not for lack of trying. If someone succeeded, large swaths of Westerners would abandon their lives to seek out the power/ability.
"This isn't questioning the limits of science."
I don't care and I don't expect it of Reason or Bobby. University is a good place to question the limits of science. Better than reason.
"They want to throw out science because of it's Eurocentricity; ignoring the fact that the association between *Europe* and *Science* is tenuous or largely nominal."
Don't believe everything you read here. If nothing else, reading reason should give you a good idea of a straw man argument.
You don't know the work 'chauvinism' means, do you?
These people aren't challenging the limits of science. They're rejecting science proms favor because they hate white people.
Don't try to attribute some sophisticated Kuhnian reasoning to this moronic drivel; even you know you're being disingenuous.
"You don't know the work 'chauvinism' means, do you?"
Of course not, but I like the sound it makes.
"These people aren't challenging the limits of science."
Who cares? I never claimed they were.
"Don't try to attribute some sophisticated Kuhnian reasoning to this moronic drivel; even you know you're being disingenuous."
Science has limits and is not the ultimate arbitrator of what is true and legitimate knowledge. If you feel threatened by that in any way, I imagine you have the means to get to understand this what 'science is eurocentric' business is all about.
"Science." You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
" I do not think it means what you think it means."
Thanks for that. Feel free to share any other thoughts that pass through your head.
"Who cares? I never claimed they were."
Then why did you say "University is a good place to question the limits of science" to open your comment on the article? It sounds like that's exactly what you're claiming.
"I imagine you have the means to get to understand this what 'science is eurocentric' business is all about."
Anyone with a brain has the means. It's nonsense born of a logical fallacy. Modern science was largely developed by westerners, therefore idiots conclude there's some 'pro-western bias' in it's conclusions. This is every bit as insipid as concluding that there must by Australian cultural biases in the study of kangaroos because the field is so disproportionately Australian. Or, maybe it's disproportionately Australian because that's where kangaroos live. And maybe westerners developed science because they were the first ones to get rich enough to have the spare time and resources to invest in it.
"Then why did you say "University is a good place to question the limits of science"
Because I think it's true. Do you have a better place in mind for questioning the limits of science?
"Modern science was largely developed by westerners, therefore idiots conclude there's some 'pro-western bias' in it's conclusions. "
I think there's more too it than your caricature. I think the best place to see eurocentrism at work in science is its emphasis of objectivity over subjectivity. That is ideological and cultural.
Just stop...you look stupider with every passing sentence. Quit while you are behind.
"Just stop...you look stupider with every passing sentence. "
I can recognize a straw man when I see one. I don't think you have grasped the subtleties of the eurocentric criticism. If you widen your reading beyond reason, you should be able to find something interesting and thought provoking. Don't let Bobby's students have the first and last word on the matter.
"I think the best place to see eurocentrism at work in science is its emphasis of objectivity over subjectivity."
Yeah I heard that platitude in historiography class. The problem is, a coherent 'objectivist' epistemology wasn't developed by western philosophers until a long time after western science began to flourish (which was by the end of the 16th century). If anything, the development of the natural sciences led to the post hoc cultivation of a philosophical framework, not the other way around.
It's also absurd to claim that the notion of 'objectivity' is either inherently western (it isn't; few ideas are closely tied with the idea of objective truth than the originally Indian concept of zero; Greek and Roman 'objectivist' understanding of Mathematics was in part inherited from Egypt, a nonwestern civilization, where several important mathematical theorems (including the Pythagorean theorem) were likely proven independently).
In the end, even in so far as a certain philosophical framework prevailed, it did not, as you say, prevail for "cultural reasons." It prevailed because it worked. Because it enabled westerners to understand, predict, and manipulate their environments better, and improve technology and material quality of life. If it did not have these *objective* material advantages, western ideas wouldn't have so well superseded the ideas of other civilization.
Really, go see if you can think of a 'subjectivist' 'oriental' way of inventing the three field crop rotation, the combustion engine, the airplane, and the birth control pill. Your reasoning is backwards. Westerners didn't impose their culture on science; their science became dominant over other "cultural ways of knowing" because of its greater utility. Wax philosophical about culture and ideology all you want, any culture or ideology inconsistent with generating 2,000 calories a day per person goes extinct.
See, I would've figured you for having Marxian sympathies. Remember that thing about base determining superstructure? Not the other way around.
"Really, go see if you can think of a 'subjectivist' 'oriental' way of inventing the three field crop rotation, the combustion engine, the airplane, and the birth control pill."
There's always iron. Extracting and manipulating iron and steel has been carried out for many centuries over the world. Craftsmen and artisans were responsible rather than scientists. How about the foods we eat today, corn and potatoes, the most widely consumed grain and vegetable. They were developed by gardeners in the Americas, not scientists.
You give too much credit to science and scientists. This is the chauvinism I mentioned earlier. At the time two bicycle mechanics were tinkering away in their workshop, the scientists of the day were telling anyone who would listen that heavier than air flight was impossible. 3 crop rotation was in practice long before any scientists appeared on the scene.
"western science"
You use the term yourself. What distinguishes western science from other science?
"There's always iron. Extracting and manipulating iron and steel has been carried out for many centuries over the world. Craftsmen and artisans were responsible rather than scientists...You give too much credit to science and scientists."
All of which is completely beside the point. See, you're the one here who seems to think science is some mystical trade which only ordained scientists can employ scientific methods, and that the ability of anyone else to do so constitutes a challenge to scientific epistemology, which is preposterous. George Green was a high school teacher, not a mathematician; does his proof of Green's theorem challenge the foundation of mathematics because he wasn't a professional mathematician? No, no it doesn't.
"At the time two bicycle mechanics were tinkering away in their workshop, the scientists of the day were telling anyone who would listen that heavier than air flight was impossible."
Yeah, scientists are often wrong about things. And why were those scientists wrong? Because they didn't ignored subjectivist Polynesian ways of knowing? No, they were wrong for scientific reasons; they miscalculated or ignored relevant variables.
"You use the term yourself. What distinguishes western science from other science?"
Um, the fact that it is conducted in a region known colloquially as 'the west." When I say "the American Hematological Association", I am not tacitly acknowledging some mysterious philosophical difference between American and, say, Japanese hematologists.
The fact that Japanese and Koreans have excelled so much at science without all converting to Christianity and eating McDonald's regularly suggests that western culture is not, in fact, either necessary or entwined with the ability to utilize science.
"Um, the fact that it is conducted in a region known colloquially as 'the west."
But this is irrelevant. These youngsters have a beef with science. Not 'western science' as you put it. What part of the globe the knowledge originates from is immaterial to the eurocentric argument. For example, the notion that objectivity is necessary or even possible. This is core to science whether the science is conducted in USA or Japan, and this core is questioned by those who take up the eurocentric critique.
"See, you're the one here who seems to think science is some mystical trade which only ordained scientists can employ scientific methods"
Didn't mean to give the impression that I thought science was a mystical trade, any more than iron working or gardening. What makes science different from iron working is that it is possible to make decent iron without following or even awareness of the principles of science, such as the privileging of objectivity. It's nothing to do with having or lacking professional qualifications. Even our Bobby seems to know that much.
Science is simply a method of proposing a hypothesis as to why something happens and then conducting tests and experiments to see if your hypothesis as to how or why something happens is true.
It has nothing to do with culture. The Chinese invented gun powder. The Indians, Persians and Arabs invented the numbering system that is vital to mathematics. The Arabs started advanced math (Algebra). Chemistry was started by Arabs (AL-chemy). The Europeans refined and perfected it over centuries. In in no way makes them superior to anyone else. The Japanese were isolated a few hundred years ago, now they are technologically superior. All cultures have contributed to the global data base of science, ie. "explanation of why something does what it does based on experiments and tests".
I don't understand what you are arguing. Are you saying that witchcraft is just as valid as Newtonian physics? The reason why we don't see some culture's methods of explaining why something does what it does is because we have conducted experiments that show, in detail, why they are wrong. Science is not some big mega corporation that approves what is "true" based on how western it is. It is simply a method used to accurately explain phenomena in the universe.
"therefore idiots conclude there's some 'pro-western bias' in it's conclusions"
You put too much stock into the arguments of idiots. I've found the eurocentric critique of science rather challenging and philosophical. I've never come across arguments for a pro-western bias, but I don't take Bobby's presentation of the case seriously. I advise you ignore it, too. It's only polemics and padding out a weak column.
Science has limits and is not the ultimate arbitrator of what is true and legitimate knowledge.
True. Just look at global warming.
Why a major Libertarian project is K-14 teaching of logic and scientific method, along with comparative religion and ethics.
Did anyone else catch the irony of the woman bitching about Western modality in a Western language?
Not only that, a woman with an intact clitoris who never had her feet bound and probably takes birth control regularly bitching about western culture in a western language.
How is this ironic?
Because if she had been raised in certain non-western cultures, including some in Africa, she wouldn't have those things. She is criticizing a culture, in favor of others, when even her right to criticize her culture at all is something she owes to the culture she is criticizing, while the other ones she idealizes would likely not allow her the privilege.
How is South Africa any less 'western' than South Carolina?
Peyton . even though Billy `s report is cool... on monday I got a gorgeous Maserati after I been earnin $8985 thiss month and even more than ten k lass month . it's certainly the easiest work Ive ever had . I started this 9-months ago and practically straight away started bringin home at least $78 per-hr . look at this now
................ http://www.jobhub44.com
If you do not understand scientific concepts it most certainly does not mean that its theory is no longer applicable. Only stupid people would give such reactions/statements... Such as this ridiculous idiotic woman is ranting about! She's most certainly is strong representation (or end result) of the poor quality education system of South freekin' Africa!!!
They just want to stop appropriating western culture.
God did it. Now shut up.
Yet somehow, the fact that Africa is still a hole despite slopping over with resources is totes because of colonialism.
Anna . I see what you mean... Virginia `s postlng is incredible, last tuesday I got a new Audi Quattro after having made $5000 this last 5 weeks and over 10k this past month . without a doubt it is the coolest work I have ever had . I started this seven months/ago and pretty much immediately started making minimum $85 per hour . view it
????????> http://www.factoryofincome.com
Liliana . if you think Lawrence `s blog is incredible, I just purchased a new Honda after earning $5741 this - 4 weeks past and also 10 grand lass month . it's by-far the most-comfortable job I have ever done . I started this four months/ago and almost immediately began to make minimum $85... p/h .
see this................ http://www.BuzzNews10.com
I can't even... stupidity has no political affiliation.
So these people don't have phones, computers, paint in their homes, cars, beauty products, medication when sick, electricity, TV, listen to music unless it's live etc? Do they think the world is flat too? They're too thick to be allowed out on their own.
Is this any more absurd than a white woman who can claim to be black or a biologically male individual identifying as a woman, because he feels like it?
I mean seriously. Morality is 100% not scientific. It's a bunch of social construct created by human beings. There is no scientific value or lack thereof in a white person wearing a sombrero on taco Tuesday. And yet, human beings will try to create policy on it.
until I looked at the paycheck saying $4730 , I did not believe that...my... brother woz like actualy bringing in money part time from there computar. . there friend brother started doing this for less than 7 months and resently paid for the morgage on there home and bought a new Cadillac .......
.................. http://www.jobprofit9.com
Liliana . if you think Lawrence `s blog is incredible, I just purchased a new Honda after earning $5741 this - 4 weeks past and also 10 grand lass month . it's by-far the most-comfortable job I have ever done . I started this four months/ago and almost immediately began to make minimum $85... p/h .
see this................ http://www.BuzzNews10.com
I don't know what you are all talking about... I can shoot lightning from my finger tips. White scientists refuse to research me.
Best lines from Avatar: The Last Airbender
Mystic: Oh yeah, well can your "science" explain why it rains?
Sokka: YES! YES IT CAN!!!
until I looked at the paycheck saying $4730 , I did not believe that...my... brother woz like actualy bringing in money part time from there computar. . there friend brother started doing this for less than 7 months and resently paid for the morgage on there home and bought a new Cadillac .......
........ http://www.jobprofit9.com
Liliana . if you think Lawrence `s blog is incredible, I just purchased a new Honda after earning $5741 this - 4 weeks past and also 10 grand lass month . it's by-far the most-comfortable job I have ever done . I started this four months/ago and almost immediately began to make minimum $85... p/h .
see this................ http://www.BuzzNews10.com
Government frustration story:
The other day at the prison, the IT woman wheeled in a huge flat-screen monitor with a webcam on top. She said it costed $30,000. We don't know who ordered it; none of us did. We were told that it's for inmates who need to do a teleconference with the parole board or a halfway house.
But there was already a monitor+webcam setup somewhere else in the institution that we could use for teleconferences. In addition, there's no situation I can think of where we would need a live video feed. Prior to the delivery of this monitor, the staff would just take the inmate in their office, call the parole board, and put it on speaker phone. This was perfectly adequate.
Also, we are now told that we can't hold group activities in the conference room because of concerns that rowdy inmates will damage the monitor.
Liliana . if you think Lawrence `s blog is incredible, I just purchased a new Honda after earning $5741 this - 4 weeks past and also 10 grand lass month . it's by-far the most-comfortable job I have ever done . I started this four months/ago and almost immediately began to make minimum $85... p/h .
see this................ http://www.BuzzNews10.com
While coming to education, the technology has brought many advantages to students and as well as teachers. showbox For example, students can do their homework or assignment with ease and can complete it faster by using the Internet.