Angry in the Great White North

From the University pf Pennsylvania, a paper presented to the NSTA National Convention in 1992 by Brian Murfin on the ideas behind "African Science":

Molefi Asante, the leading proponent of Afrocentrism, states that "Western science, with its notions of knowledge of phenomena for the sake of knowledge and its emphasis on technique and efficiency is not deep enough for our humanistic and spiritual viewpoint" (Asante, 1988, p. 80). How ironic it is. Many europeans view African culture as primitive while some Africans question the whole foundations of modern Western science. The following quote from Asante (1988, p. 81) sums up the Afrocentric attitude towards science:

The self is the center of the world, animating it, and making it living and personal. Neither materiality nor spirituality are illusory. This is why the idea in western science of progress is troubling. Progress for the West, is not more knowledge, but more technique. How to do it faster, smoother, longer, louder and with greater exploitation becomes the pass-key to a techno-scientific future. Progress in an Afrocentric manner is related to the development of human personality because we are the source of life for the material and the spiritual; when we become more conscious of ourselves we shall be advanced and make progress.

Asante also points out that recent discoveries related to energy, gravity, and quarks can be better explained using non-western ideas. He gave the example of the search for the smallest particle which has continued from atoms to electrons to quarks and the Afrocentric realization by some scientists that they may never find a discrete answer to this question.

The wonder of quantum theory is how so many people know so much about something they clearly do not understand.

Fortunately, I have taken a university level course in quantum mechanics, taught by a white professor who presumably had no racial axe to grind.

Quantum theory does teach that many properties of elementary particles are best described in terms of probability. Indeed, most scientists believe that this "fuzziness" is an inherent property of the universe, something that Albert Einstein found unsettling. But that is not to say that the location of an electron, for example, is somehow an unanswerable question, or that this would somehow justify the notion that there are no right answers in life. Nice try, Asante, but back to physics class with you (assuming you ever even went to one). The probabilistic property of an electron's location, to continue with the example, is well bounded and is defined in terms of extremely complicted and precise formula (known as the Schroedinger equation for the wave function, named after physicist Erwin Schroedinger, who was white -- with these people it seems important to keep track of these things, as distasteful as it is). Application of the Schroedinger equation to a quantum mechanics problem requires advanced skills in calculus, and there is a right answer, and every other answer is wrong (I have the marked problem sets to prove it).

The underlying notion of Afrocentric science is bizarre (and for that matter, feminist science). Science is science -- the knowledge of how the natural universe works. "Western" science really refers to the technique of science used in the west -- hypothesis, observation, experimentation, conclusion, and most importantly, critical peer review to accept or reject the findings. That last part is what bothers many people who prefer to have "science" where nothing is wrong, just misunderstood because of differences in race, culture, or gender. That way, anyone can call himself or herself a scientist.

Is Western science better? Yes. It is actually acultural, something Asante and his Afrocentrist colleagues loathe, since it suggests that there is no cultural reason for black students to be underperforming, thus no excuse from simply trying harder. The techniques of Western science require no particular belief system, other than believing what you see. You can believe in other things too, but they don't factor into the equations, so a Hindu scientist and a Catholic scientist should have no problems working together (and in universities run on the Western model, this sort of collaboration is the norm). Finally, the process of critiquing the work of other scientists, sometimes harshly, is humbling and at the same time liberating, since it allows a scientist who is on the wrong track to free himself of his misguided notions, using the work of his fellow scientists discrediting his works as the springboard to a new and better understanding. It takes a certain maturity, though, to submit your work for review and to accept criticism.

That sort of maturity is not the norm in African science:

According the Asante (p. 45) "Nothing is more right for you than the way derived from your own historical experiences." Perhaps an African perspective on science would prove more appealing to African-American students since it may be more compatible with African-American culture.

A Western scientist would have no trouble in pronouncing the judgment of "wrong" on something that could not duplicated in a lab, or that showed a clear mistake in reasoning or procedure. There would be no consideration of the "historical experiences" of the other scientist (except in the case of those "historical experiences" indicating repeated incidences of bad science).

Here is an example of an attempt to denigrate Western science and promote Afrocentric science:

According to [M.B.] Ogunniyi ( p. 3-4), "The African concept of causality, chance and/or probability is based upon a different logic from that of science." [Nwankwo] Ezeabasili (p. xvii) says this about cause and effect and science:

The belief in the laws of cause and effect is very strong in Western culture. But the rest of the world throughout the centuries has never bothered about these laws... the same cause can have different effects; ...effects may be mistaken for causes; and finally ... the mere fact of being posterior in time does not make a thing an effect Ogunniyi (p. 4) gives an example of how African and Western science would attempt to investigate the phenomenon of malaria. A Western scientist would search for the causative agent, e.g. the plasmodium, and the vector, the Anopheles mosquito. An African scientist would ask why that person in particular and not another was bitten by a disease carrying mosquito, in the hopes of preventing a recurrence of the event in the future.

Causality in African science is different? A cause has an effect -- how much simpler does it get? If a cause is seen to have more than one effect, then you haven't identified the true root cause of the effect, or the effect you are studying is really multiple effects in composition. Maybe the problem here is that Western science is harder, requiring more work?

The funny thing is how these Afrocentric theorists act like they're revealing something new and wonderful to us culturally-blinded Westerners. The most basic reason a cause has a different effect each time is that the cause is acting on an automaton with memory instead of on something that can be expressed as a pure function. A function has no memory, so the same inputs (causes) always have the same outputs (effects). An automaton has memory, so the outputs (effects) are based on a function that includes inputs (causes) and the current, possibly unknown, state of the system (memory). There is a whole field of study on finite state automata (I took a semester of it in third year). The desktop computer is the most ubiquitous finite state automaton in existence.

So much for stunning wisdom from the unique Afrocentric mindset. Next they'll be telling us Egyptians invented computers.

But the malaria example is laughable. The foolish Western (white) scientist searches for the "the causative agent, e.g. the plasmodium, and the vector, the Anopheles mosquito". The holistic and wise African (black) scientist focuses on preventing the mosquito bite in the first place.

But didn't you just admit it was the Western (white) scientist who identified the Anopheles mosquito as the vector? The African (black) scientist is just piggybacking on Western knowledge. And you don't give credit to the Western (white) scientiest -- the whole point of identifying the vector is to interrupt it or redirect it, exactly what the African (black) scientist is proposing. The implication that once the Western (white) scientist has identified the mosquito, he stops and scratches his head in confusion while his African (black) colleague leaps into action to stop or kill the mosquito is insulting and absurd.

If Afrocentric science is at least as good, or even superior, to Western science, then why isn't there more of it? The answer is that African science is too valuable and too powerful for uncontrolled access:

[Sam] Bajah (1980, p. 15-16) gives one reason for this seeming absence of African contributions. He states that whatever has gone by the terminology African science has been so exclusive that it makes nonsense of any notion about the freedom to information. The effectiveness of a number of processes now classified as African science depends tenaciously on who is performing [them]...parents are expected to pass on their knowledge of traditional herbs to some carefully selected children in their family...Assuming that this contention of selective transfer is true, then the amount of knowledge which has perished will be enormous. One reason generally advanced for this agelong, exclusive right by individuals to knowledge was the need to protect (against) the widespread and uncontrolled use of the knowledge.

That seems to be a repeated theme in Afrocentrist theory. Hidden knowledge uncovered by a wise few (Asante and his colleagues) now taught to the select few (black students) who can be trusted with the power the knowledge provides. It is a teenage fantasy found in comic books. That entire university faculties are built on such a basis is ridiculous. That some people want to import this nonsense into Canadian schools is disturbing.