UCT debate on decolonizing science: Raju vs Crowe – a final rejoinder from the “liar, total ignoramus, racist suppressor”
Tim Crowe
B.A. (U. Mass./Boston), M.Sc. (U. Chicago), Ph.D. (UCT), Life F.U.C.T. &
Emeritus Professor
Furthermore, no mathematical scientist at UCT (including those who are Deputy Vice-Chancellors) has endorsed his call for the replacement of logic-based, deductive, formal mathematics with an alternative: ‘easy-to-learn’, empirical, inductive, zeroism-based ganita, the ancient art of computation developed in India. Can Raju explain why this is so or ‘refute’ me by providing a list of supporters? All that has emerged in his defence since his original seminar is Transformation DVC Feris’ unsubstantiated characterization of maths at UCT as “dogma” reflecting its “colonial history and epistemology” and “exact similar science as taught in the West” thought to be “objective and universal” and “the singular truth”. The mathematicians reply that there is no Western, Asian or African mathematics. There is only global mathematics that (just like other sciences) is a constantly evolving synthesis of competing ideas developed in different places, sometimes in parallel, over time.
Once again,
Raju revisits the “Western” origins of ‘Euclid’ and The
Elements, one of the most
beautiful and influential works of science in the history of humankind. Contrary to his assertions, no one at UCT is
wedded to the idea that Euclid even existed as a ‘white’, individual, Greek male. Nevertheless, the book The Elements did exist and was written in the West, perhaps
as a compilation of work by two, more or many mathematicians from throughout
the Old World. The only ‘evidence’ that ‘Euclid’
was a ‘black’ she (Hypatia –
who was raped and lynched in a church in +-415 CE, some 700 years after
‘Euclid’) comes from Raju’s imagination.
Raju could offer a prize of a million US$ and still not obtain a
definitive answer to Euclid’s ‘race’, gender, nationality and demise. In short, this information is lost to
history.
With regard
to relative ‘superiority’, although zeroism-based ganita may be an acceptable
inductive way to ‘do’ mathematics, mathematicians worldwide maintain that it has
been surpassed by logic-based, deductive formal mathematics (that developed from
The Elements and world-sourced
advances long after,) that helps students and academic practitioners to ‘understand’,
research and innovatively develop mathematics. Marketing mathematics on a geographical,
religious, political or racial basis, or favoring ganita because it’s ‘easier’,
is insulting to both its end-users and innovators.
I agree with
Raju that, since “students should note that faculty salaries are funded by
students (sic) fees and public money”, “faculty must be made publicly accountable”.
But, if the ‘cowardly Apartheid’ mathematicians
are right about it, can the ganita-graduated students make Raju accountable
when they can’t find jobs or are never appointed ad hominem during their academic careers when reviewed by peers? Yet, if Raju has his way, the students should
be allowed to “choose” on how they should be taught maths. One wonders how fee-paying parents, employers
and scholarship donors might react to this.
Once again to Popper. Karl Popper is arguably
the 20th Century’s most widely respected philosopher of science. He repudiated induction and rejected the view that it is the characteristic
method of scientific investigation and inference, substituting falsifiability in
its place. At his seminar and during our various e-mails, Raju and I engaged in a
mini-debate on how Karl Popper used the terms “falsifiability” and “refutation”
in science philosophy. Raju claims that
falsifiability and refutation are philosophically functional synonyms (are
"homologous" = they ARE the same thing).
However,
if by refutation, Raju means that one idea can supersede another through
populist pressure or piles of ‘contextual’ empirical 'findings', as opposed to
passing a critical test(s) linked to an unequivocal prediction (the falsifier)
built into the hypothesis, then, once again, he’s playing fast and loose with
philosophy and science.
With regard
to my being “bound by myths” and do “not understand the difference between
Einstein and special relativity”, I readily admit to the latter. UCT’s Dr Henri Laurie and Profs. George Ellis and
Jeff Murugan have revealed Raju’s weaknesses in this and other matters
mathematic. Oh, but this doesn’t hold
water because they’re lying, racist, Apartheid scientists too. Raju had an especially ‘complimentary’ comment
on Laurie’s contribution to the seminar discussion: “Having nothing to say, he
used up his time to recount his autobiography!”
To assess the ‘truth’ of Raju’s comment, watch the belatedly
released video of
the panelists’ comments.
Then Raju
offers a chunk of his CV to demonstrate that he’s the leading ‘scholar’ in
decolonizing maths. This is disputed by
no one. Then, he asks the question: “Who
else could they (Feris and the Curriculum Change Working Group) have invited”
to promote decolonization of maths at UCT.
My and, I guess, UCT’s mathematical scientists’ answer is: “No one,
including him.” By this time in his
piece, I am also now a “racist total ignoramus”.
Then Raju
shows his and pro-Fallists’ true colors in a telling comment.
“But a critical analysis threatens the
soft power of the coloniser
and the racist—which power
persists in education—even after the notional end of colonialism or apartheid.”
The ‘Bottom Line’
What’s
really happening (and going to succeed?) at UCT is not adaptive, constructive
decolonization. This is evidenced by the
virtual absence of any discussion of decolonization at the many meetings of
failing Internal
Reconciliation and Transformation Steering Committee. The real process is a relentless pursuit of power by Fallists and their
sympathizers in the Executive, Council, SRC, Senate, Academics Union and
Convocation who are advocates of critical theory (CT),
and intend to employ it in decolonizing UCT’s values, structures, curricula,
etc. CT is a neo-Marxist
philosophy of
the Frankfurt
School, which
originated in Germany in the 1930s, was developed further by the likes of Antonio
Gramsci and
reached its apogee in critical
race theory.
Critical race theorists reject
non-racial meritocracy and call for aggressive, race-conscious efforts to radically
change the status quo, giving power to the racially oppressed. They assert that
property rights are not absolute, and need to be ‘contextualized’ against a
societal requirement for affirmative action.
Within UCT, ‘CTers’, including Transformation DVC Feris, call
for the metamorphosis of a structured, world-ranked UCT, designed by
Ph.D.-trained scholars over nearly a century to pursue universal laws and truth,
into an inclusive pluriversity, populated by public
intellectuals who have flexible epistemologies and truths dictated by
culture and the current normative problems of society.
This CT strategy has been revealed vividly by Fallist Dr Lwazi Lushaba (UCT Political Studies) who made no bones about the Fallists’
position and goals at the UCT Assembly co-chaired by UCT Council
vice-chairperson Debbie Budlender held on 1 November 2017:
“This struggle is not for poor people. It is for Black people.”
“If you are Black, you are disadvantaged in every
respect. If you are White, you are
advantaged in every respect.”
UCT continues to “teach precisely the same ideas it
taught during Apartheid to perpetuate the colonial system”.
“There is a structure [current ad hominem promotion procedures] that ensures that we are kept
outside of the academy. This is not
accidental. It is by design.”
“We must tell
the White people who are threatening to walk away that a time will come along
soon when we will run UCT on our own and give them a new value system and not
at the whim of ‘White’ sentiment.”
With regard to the importance of power at UCT, at the 2017
Dinner for UCT Fellows, Research DVC Professor
Mamokgethi Phakeng chose it as the topic for newly elected Fellows’ inaugural addresses,
rather than one related to the raison d’etre of UCT Fellowship: “recognition
of original distinguished academic work”. Fortunately, one of the new Fellows, Traditional
Law Prof. Chuma
Himonga, pointed out the reality that “Power corrupts; absolute power
corrupts absolutely”.
In the meantime
According to
Raju, in the meantime, I and UCT’s other closet-racists use BLAA (Boasts of white superiority, Lies about
non-Whites, accompanied Adjectives and Abuses) to “bully”, suppress and
subjugate Fallists, ‘blacks’ and all and sundry in a desperate attempt to
derail the “decolonisation effort” (still undescribed other than in Feris’
toe-in-the water account). All I can say to this is that, after I finish
this piece, I’m going to work on a manuscript with a former student
(and now colleague) who I’m supposed to be bullying.
Who’s next
Well, the
Faculty of Law (ranked in the top 100 universities internationally) which
generates masses of higher employable graduates seems to be in the decolonizers’
sights. Another possible target
‘softer’ science is Biology. The CTers
could invite an advocate of ‘Intelligent Design’
to accommodate the views of those who maintain that neo-Darwinian evolution is
just another “Theory”. More
specifically, they could invite an inductive, highly empirical, theory-free pheneticist
to show how massive amounts of DNA sequences can be interpreted to demonstrate
the ’reality’ of human ‘races’. However,
before they do this, they should consult with at least some of UCT’s eminent
evolutionary biologists or read Prof. David Hull’s (my late friend) book Science
as a Process or at least my review of it in South African Journal of
Science (1989. 85: 632).
As for me, I
await some sort of condemnation
by UCT VC Dr Max Price of Raju and others who have defamed him, UCT and the
academics who are the life blood of UCT.
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