I've followed Diana Fleischman's work for many months. She's smart and funny, but takes her evolutionary psychology seriously every step of the way. Diana has started writing a column on Psychology Today titled, "How to Train Your Boyfriend." Here an excerpt from her opening post:
You have two grandmothers, four great grandmothers, 512 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers and millions of grandmas further in your past, before the word grandma even existed. These grandmas that scraped by, suffered, and survived long enough to reproduce, are only a fraction of all the women that existed. One important characteristic that set grandmas apart from the millions of non-grandmas was their ability to shape the behavior of others, especially children and grandpas. You probably have grandmas who lived on farms trying to get multiple children to cooperate with (and not kill) one another and in villages where they had to manage their reputations for the good of their families. But you definitely have grandmas who convinced men to take care of them and their children. Without any one of them, and their abilities you wouldn’t exist to read this blog. We evolved to be able to get other people to do what we want.
But, how do people get other people to do what they want?
I have two questions about the many recently vocal people who are questioning that 2 + 2 = 4:
A) Are they insincere? If they are pranksters or math anarchists, why are they spending all of this time and effort digging in? Thus, it seems unlikely that they are consciously being disruptive for the hell of it.
B) If they are sincere, the analysis becomes far more interesting, but also dangerous to society at large. 2 + 2 = 5 is not the sort of math that cures viruses or puts sophisticated robotic probes on the surface of Mars. Consider this overwhelming push back to the claim that "2+2 = 4," where many of these by people pushing back claim to be mathematicians or math teachers:
1/
This is a screenshot of people saying 2+2=5. You read that right...2+2=5.
Among them are teachers, educators, and professors who plan on teaching this stuff to your children. So let's talk about what's going on here, why they're doing this, and how we can stop it.
A thread: pic.twitter.com/3CY2IcsahY
— Wokal Distance (@wokal_distance) August 4, 2020
If they are sincerely concerned that 2 + 2 = 4, they might be A) Consciously motivated to pull down math standards in order that low performing students pass even though these students lack math proficiency. If that is the case, they should confess up that this is their motive and we can then have an open debate about whether this is a good idea. But consider option B) Their motives might be unconscious, which means that they are infected by social conflagration (the power of which was demonstrated in 1956 by Soloman Asch), and their math gymnastics are being driven by what Jonathan Haidt terms social intuitionism:
Haidt distrusts the reasons people give for their moral decisions. See, for example, his article: “The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment.”
Intuitionism in philosophy refers to the view that there are moral truths, and that when people grasp these truths they do so not by a process of ratiocination and reflection, but rather by a process more akin to perception, in which one just sees without argument that they are and must be true . . . Moral reasoning is usually an ex-post facto process used to influence the intuitions (and hence judgments) of other people . . . [In sum], 1) the reasoning process has been overemphasized; 2) reasoning is often motivated; 3) the reasoning process constructs post-hoc justifications, yet we experience the illusion of objective reasoning.
Does 2 + 2 = 4? It's too bad that we distrust each other so much that we need to meticulously lock down the parameters before proceeding. Apparently we need to argue about whether "2" = 2, and whether "+" means simple addition and then we need to decide whether "=" means equals exactly, more or less or "in some worlds." And the real shame is that these math protesters are clearly hypocritical. When they stand up and walk away from their toxic keyboards, they might walk into a grocery store where they put two apples on the counter, then go back and get two more apples. Then, when they are charged for FIVE apples (by a math-challenged store clerk or, perhaps, a mathematically Woke clerk), they will speak up with moral-mathematical clarity that they should be charged for only FOUR apples, because 2 + 2 = [drum roll . . . ] 4.
Soh was recently interviewed by Joe Rogan. Right out of the gate:
00:35
Joe Rogan: You're a sex neuroscientist. Is that an accurate description?
Debra Soh: Yeah I'm a former academic sex researcher. My PhD is in sexual neuroscience research and now I work as a science journalist and a columnist
JR: Why former?
DS: Because the climate in academia has changed so much. Like you mentioned how things are topsy-turvy, but that's pretty much how you can describe academia nowadays, even in the hard sciences.
JR: Yeah, it's getting a little weird what do you attribute it to?
DS: I think it's a combination of things. I think it's particular ideologies coming in and taking over, but they've been there for a while. I think it's that that they've reached the mainstream. I see it as political correctness running amok. I see it as legitimate researchers not being able to speak out because they've got enough on their plate with their research. They’re teaching. They've got their students, you know. They're super busy. And then on top of it they don't want to deal with the mobbing that will inevitably happen if they do speak out, so things are kind of in favor right now of the craziness.
James Lindsay Tweeted this Tweet from an "ethnomathematics teacher."
Woke Math, in their own words. ESMathTeacher is Shraddha Shirude's blog. She's an ethnomathematics teacher and secretary director of the Washington state Ethnic Studies project. pic.twitter.com/RFuzcbJvzV
— James Lindsay, swings a big saber (@ConceptualJames) August 4, 2020
Somehow, mathematics became a "white" thing, despite A) it's usefulness and availability to anyone who wants to use these principles and B) its worldwide origins, which extend to Greece, Egypt and the Middle East, among many other places.
From 3000 BC the Mesopotamian states of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria, together with Ancient Egypt and Ebla began using arithmetic, algebra and geometry for purposes of taxation, commerce, trade and also in the field of astronomy and to formulate calendars and record time.The most ancient mathematical texts available are from Mesopotamia and Egypt – Plimpton 322 (Babylonian c. 1900 BC),[2] the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (Egyptian c. 2000–1800 BC)[3] and the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus (Egyptian c. 1890 BC).
The Woke movement (she terms it "post-structuralist" thought) is a fermenting vat of vague, self-contradictory claims, much of them unhinged from the analytical evidence-based Enlightenment tradition that has proven itself by sending people to the moon. Wokeness functions as a Trojan horse; it looks like something good, but functions to disarm skeptical analytical thought. It functions much like fundamentalist religion, elevating raw feeling above analytical thought.
We need to meet Wokeness on its own terms if we are to show where it has gone astray. The challenge is that it requires a substantial investment to become fluent in Woke. Further, fully engaging seems like a non-ending exercise, given the continuous propagation of new ad hoc Woke concepts. Is it even possible to have a conversation where one side disparages analytical thinking, self-critical thought and even mathematics? It's the equivalent of sending a time-traveling Enlightenment thinker back to the Dark Ages to discuss the scientific method with Middle Age Church leaders.
I'm looking for the sweet spot--enough familiarity that I can demonstrate to timid outsiders that the Wokeness is drenched in destructive anti-intellectualism. Woke thought is also sprinkled with some salient legitimate concerns and emotionally-charged factual accuracies, however, so one needs to read and listen carefully.
Much of the danger can be nullified by putting the definitions of key Woke terms under the spotlight, terms such as "anti-racism, "critical," "systemic racism" and "gender." Modern Discourses has compiled an excellent encyclopedia for understanding the origin and meaning of these terms by the Woke, as well as additional commentary.
In the meantime, how does one most efficiently convey this danger of Woke thought to the great majority of Americans, who are quietly hunkering down, waiting for this wave of socially-reverse-engineered thought to pass over? How does one best warn that this wave of anti-intellectualism and stifled inquiry will be around for a long time, given that a loud (but relatively small) mob of Woke activists has cowed the two key institutions that should be fighting the hardest against it (media and universities)?
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