2+2 = 5 – Feb 20, 2021
I must admit that for all my sentient life I’ve believed that 2 + 2 does in fact equal 4. In the beginning I believed 2 + 2 = 4 because everyone else believed it. Then later I saw that number theory along with my fingers proved that two units of anything plus two more units did add up to four units. Then I went on to see that simple counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, calculus, geometry, trigonometry, Fourier series, Fibonacci numbers, the Pythagorean theorem, Newton’s laws of gravity and motion, Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetic waves, Einstein’s laws, Quantum mechanics, all of established physics and my ability to type this on my PC and send it to you rely on the objective reality of mathematics. Mathematics is a branch of logic which is a vital branch of philosophy. A bunch of nerdy white racists in Renaissance France didn’t come up with all this. It is the result of thousands of years of analysis and thought going back to China, Arabia, Ancient Greece, and Europe. But now I am told by Bill Gates that arriving at an objective answer is suspect and is nothing more than an example of white supremacy. How could I have been so stupid?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is bankrolling an activist educational group, Pathway, that believes math is racist and that arriving at an objective answer is an example of “white supremacy.”
A conglomerate of 25 educational organizations called A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction asserts that asking students to find the correct answer is an “inherently racist practice.”
A guidebook for teachers produced by Pathway called ‘Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction’ ludicrously claims that mathematics “is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.”
Teachers are instructed to place the blame for non-white students getting answers wrong on “white supremacist practices,” which are truly to blame for the “underachievement” of minorities.
Bill, let me ask you something. I’ve spent fifty years writing computer programs to solve problems. They either work or they don’t work. They either solve the problem or they don’t. This is a classic example of objective reality at work. Am I just a confused White racist who thinks that “being White” made them work? Please, Bill, stick to computers and leave educational theories to the racist left.