[Closed] Science Must Fall

Makes you think.

Can't watch the video ATM but sounds like they should meet up the flat earth nut Jobs.

Apparently the Flat Earth society is very proud of having members at all four corners of the globe 😉

Her description of the theory of gravity and the way in which she describes how we are forced to accept the theory shows she has no understanding of the scientific method.

Probably best ignored.

Her description of the theory of gravity and the way in which she describes how we are forced to accept the theory shows she has no understanding of the scientific method.

Funny.....

Can't watch the video ATM but sounds like they should meet up the flat earth nut Jobs.

They'd be a good fit.

In brief the video features an eloquent young lady explaining that science is an essentially western construct and needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up from an African perspective so that it can explain things like the ability to send lightning to people using witchcraft or black magic.

Good luck to them, they won't be the first group to try to break away from modern civilisation and live like they're from an earlier, more 'real', 'honest' time, but inevitably this new, old way will pick and choose which parts of science like like as soon as they're hungry, sick and life expectancy falls to somewhere between "died in childbirth" and 35.

They're just a few notches along from the Daily Mail reader who thinks everything was better in the past because they only think about the good and not the bad.

Has molgrips seen this yet 😆

They can ignore Western science if they want.

But she'd better not use the internet to distribute her ideas. Or use those electric lights in that building, or wear what looks like a shirt of synthetic fibres.

And as for science being a Western thing - best not let any Muslims or Chinese hear that.

Has molgrips seen this yet

Now I have. Feel my wrath.

choose which parts of science like like as soon as they're hungry, sick and life expectancy falls to somewhere between "died in childbirth" and 35.

Pah, we all know Noah live to 900 odd. Shows what you know, he had no science, just less sin (because the sinners were all dead...)

Drac - Moderator

Makes you think.

That's surely the last thing they wanted!

in an attempt to be gracious, they *might* not be as nutty as they sound...

ok, i'll try and explain: somewhere in all the wibble, seems to run the very scientific approach of questioning everything. I can believe that the intent of mentioning Newton, was to suggest that a good way to come up with a better theory than Newton's is to be unaware of Newton's theory in the first place...

maybe...

safe place though? pfft, if you're going to talk shite like that, i'm going to laugh at you.

a good way to come up with a better theory than Newton's is to be unaware of Newton's theory in the first place

Boko Haram

"as people with the ability to reason"

😆

Boko Haram

wasnt there a song about that

"a whiter shade of pale"

Seems it's a little more than just science they want to fall. excuse the cut & paste

It is a loose movement of disgruntled youth in South Africa. The ANC (Nelson Mandela's party) has been in power since universal suffrage was obtained 24 years ago. In this time there still has been a large disparity of haves and have-nots in South Africa. The ANC government has failed with corruption and ineptitude rampant. The (mostly) students (who are labelled "born frees" - younger than 24) started getting frustrated. A surge of Pan-African Nationalism grew among them, and they started blaming colonial structures for their ills (which in my opinion is not where the blame lies). About 2 years ago a young man started vandalizing the British Mega-Colonialist Cecil John Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town. He and his friends started demanding that the statue must be removed with #RhodesMustFall. Rhodes has a statue at UCT because he donated land and money for the University. Rhodes is also the guy which Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was named after (and many other things, like Rhodes scholarship at Oxford). So after many protests his statue was removed. Then the movement evolved to a free university education movement and it beacme #FeesMustFall. All through this the African Nationalism was rampant with graffiti and t-shirts of "**** White People" and "Kill White People" happening (some bleeding heart white SJW remained, as they do). People started protesting near the end of the academic year (September-November) last year for no fees increase at public universities and after a while the government conceded. This year they demanded free education, as promised by the ANC during election cycles in the past. But instead of protesting at ANC offices, they protested at campuses, and things started getting violent, including the burning of buildings like libraries and buses. Students who wants to finish their exam preps keep getting disrupted and classes were suspended for weeks at certain campuses. Many research and on-campus medical facilities were also closed. A worker died, and many other people almost died. There were also riots in the areas around universities.

The ScienceMustFall is part of this anti-white, anti-colonial Pan-African Nationalism, where people who are not very bright try to tell smarter people that anything western needs to be rejected and after "de- colonization" African ways needs to be the dominant driver.

rusty90 - Member

Rather contrary to Newton's famous remark If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

well, yes, quite.

i don't agree with them, but if i try really hard, i can pretend that they raise some interesting topics of thought...

a good way to come up with a better theory than Newton's is to be unaware of Newton's theory in the first place

Didn't seem to hinder Einstein...

molgrips....Now I have. Feel my wrath.

I'm worried they may overtake the scientific community. 😉

miketually - Member

Didn't seem to hinder Einstein...

as above, quite, yes, agreed, etc.

oh i give up.

somewhere in all the wibble, seems to run the very scientific approach of questioning everything.

This is true (though I don't think that is their aim).

I spent a fair while going through Flat Earth stuff for much the same reason.

Sometimes people who reject all the [i]obvious[/i] knowledge do manage to ask some questions that make you go "Huh... actually why [i]is[/i] that?" which forces you to go and find out.

rusty90 - Member

Rather contrary to Newton's famous remark If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

It is- but Newton was filling in gaps in fundamental knowledge, that's a different thing to updating or overwriting an accepted scientific model.

I reckon though that if you start out not knowing what Newton figured out, you probably just go around not having a scooby. But if you're a genius, more likely you invent Newtonian physics rather than coming up with something better from base principles.

<edit- dang it, that's what happens if you get distracted while typing and post later. Hopefully it still adds something>

There is a process by which existing scientific concensus is overturned; it's called science.

Its just well...

shite isn't it?

I mean where would you start? Is Euclid western science?

When the library at Alexandria gathered together all the books in known existence at the time, were they setting up a colonial western hegemony?

Even if you agree that colonialism was a very bad thing for Africa, why would you throw the baby out with the bath water? Ditching human progress and knowledge isn't going to make solving Africa's problems any easier.

Retreating from reason is one of the first steps down the path to fundamentalism, even if this starts with noble intentions

makes you think...... these folks are another set of nutters.

Oh what a load of total bollox....

"Science as a whole is a product of Western modality...."

Agenda much?

Talking shite much?

Swivel eyed loon much?

I can believe that the intent of mentioning Newton, was to suggest that a good way to come up with a better theory than Newton's is to be unaware of Newton's theory in the first place...

However they would almost certainly end up at the same place I feel.

I lived most of my life in South Africa, and it makes me incredibly sad to see what is happening there. The corruption, populism, casual violence, stupidity of the highest level.

I have a good friend who tried to convince people that mathematics was wrong while at university. 1st class combined physics and philosophy degree - brilliant mathematician, mostly in jest but liked to question established theories. I can't remember the specifics but it was based around the idea that maths (and physics) makes things up to remove inconveniences in theory. root of -1 was one example and all imaginary numbers. The idea was that there was something fundamentally missing from understanding that meant we had to use these ideas to fit things together.

Ditching human progress and knowledge isn't going to make solving Africa's problems any easier.

Funny you should mention that, I read a report years ago about why Asian economies were roaring and Africa was a disaster zone, and the conclusion was that the Asian's took the colonial Universities, hospitals etc and integrated them into their country and culture and built on it. African countries meanwhile destroyed them as they were a symbol of the past. As such healthcare and education in Africa has been set back decades if not centuries.

It would be more convincing if they didn't seem reconciled with the idea of using the world wide web to denounce western science and invention.

GrahamS

Thoughts?

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Also, what has science ever done for us?

"people believe that through black magic you can send lightening to land on people. can you explain that scientifically?"

Yes. People believe many things. not all of them are true. The belief can be proved/ disproved scientifically.

she's not even suggesting it's true, just that people believe it.

As for gravity i don't see what western/ african/ any other perspective has to do with it. Baffled.

Perhaps, like us, they've just had enough of experts telling them what to think.

African countries meanwhile destroyed them as they were a symbol of the past. As such healthcare and education in Africa has been set back decades if not centuries.

And the reason that China isn't the dominant culture (yet!) is because they got a completely backwards leader in the middle ages who reversed a lot of the scientific progress they had made - the were well ahead of Europe in terms of scientific progress and technology until the Renaissance

A similar trend happened even earlier in Arabia which was an early seat of scientific inquiry and learning but got wiped out by fundamentalism.

I reckon though that if you start out not knowing what Newton figured out, you probably just go around not having a scooby. But if you're a genius, more likely you invent Newtonian physics rather than coming up with something better from base principles.

Interesting ideas in here. After all, the idea of 'scientific knowledge' is sometimes problematic. Science and mathematics are not built on truths, rather they are models built on our understanding of the world and sometimes the model is not appropriate. Given that many models are built on a western understanding, it is plausible that starting in a different place, you would arrive at at a different conclusion

Given that many models are built on a western understanding, it is plausible that starting in a different place, you would arrive at at a different conclusion

Interesting to think about whether you actually would or whether you'd end up in pretty much the same place, but with laws named after somebody else you like better.

I also can't decide if that is a slightly generous take on what the people in that video are actually suggesting.

On the bright side, once they get back to the discovery of electronics they'd be able to sort out the whole electron flow vs conventional flow nonsense. 😀

(Though I'm not sure how well that would fit in with black magic)

The students at Reading University are next up for the WillShortlyGetAShockWhenTheyJoinTheRealWorld awards with their alternate universe branding of Jeremy Paxman as a Sexist and Mysoginist for asking about their team mascot on University Challenge:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/jeremy-paxman-in-bizarre-sexism-row-over-comment-on-university-challenge-about-knitted-doll-a3391911.html

rusty90 - Member

We use Newton's principles rather than Leibniz's because they consistently work

OK, I was looking at it from the "science must fall" approach of coming up with something different and better. You could certainly come up with something different and worse.

(Monadology is interesting from a philosophical point of view though)

And as for science being a Western thing - best not let any Muslims or Chinese hear that

A real failure to understand if they wish to talk about "western science"

Terrible description of Newton as well

Science never stops if you have a better explanation of "newtonian gravity" that fits all observed data and makes predictions then lets hear it

Science basically finds truths - smoking causes cancer is not a white conspiracy to oppress black people its just a fact.

I thought she was taking the piss initially and it was a debate where someone had to defend the indefensible - a sort of evening with ninfan type of thing.

Interesting ideas in here. After all, the idea of 'scientific knowledge' is sometimes problematic. Science and mathematics are not built on truths, rather they are models built on our understanding of the world and sometimes the model is not appropriate. Given that many models are built on a western understanding, it is plausible that starting in a different place, you would arrive at at a different conclusion

Science isn't built on truths, but maths is?