Racism and Science

West, Keon.  The Science of Racism: Everything You Need to Know But Probably Don't - Yet.  

        New York: Abrams, 2025.  ISBN: 9781419774379  

So what is racism?  How many folks are racist?  Could you be racist?  Just some of the questions that get swirled around a lot on the news and social media.  But these are questions that need to be answered.   Keon West, a researcher from England, has spent his time in the trenches of this research and aims to share with the reader his scientific findings, not just anecdotes.  

Keon West breaks the book into four parts.  Part I deals with how do we know that racism is real and what evidence does science have on this topic with chapters discussing definitions of terms, how science comes to a consensus on a topic, and how pervasive racism might be and its relationship to power.  Part II looks at unconscious bias, outright deception/lying, and games people play on themselves to hide their own racism.  Part III gets down into the weeds to examine the complexities of racism - how it is not all black and white, but rather very nuanced.  Part IV provides various approaches to dealing with racism scientifically.  Some of these approaches include colour-blind approach, diversity initiatives, and what really does work.  West finishes the book with a call-out to other related issues of bias beyond race - i.e. gender, class, status, and a multitude of other issues that all interplay with racism.  

So, if you are interested in learning what science has on this topic, The Science of Racism will be a great place to start.  Keon West documents his points and provides plenty of references for the reader to explore.  A recommended read for anyone interested in racism. 

Actual science or fictional science?

Ritchie, Stuart.  Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search 

          for Truth.  New York: Metropolitan Books, 2020.  ISBN: 9781250222695

 

What do you know of the scientific method?  Now that you talked about how science is supposed to be done, what do you know of the publishing process for scientific research?  Well Stuart Ritchie, a social scientist, presents you with plenty of evidence that all is not well in the world of science, whether social or physical science!

 

Ritchie opens with some examples in  the Preface, then has a chapter on how science works or at least is supposed to work.  He then discusses the replication crisis that is still gripping science (people duplicating experiments but getting very different results than the original experiment).  He follows this up with chapters on fraud in science, how bias of various sorts infect science, how negligence leads to worthless and/or bad science, and how hyping results lead to over-blown expectations that do not pan out.  Ritchie follows up these chapters with an examination on the perverse incentives that scientists have when doing and publishing science (need for funding, need for publications, need to positive vs negative results, etc.  But he finishes the book with some steps that may help turn the tide on the scientific fictions being published.  And a s a final gift to the reader, he has an appendix entitled "How to Read a Scientific Paper" - in other words how to evaluate for yourself whether an article is actually science or just pretending!

Science Fictions is not for those who want a story, but will richly reward those who are interested in seeing actual, credible science being produced.

Is Math a language?

Orlin, Ben.  Math for English Majors: A Human Take on the Universal Language.  New York: Black 

        Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2024. 

So, when you think of mathematics, do you come up with images of a dry subject that you were forced to study in school, but no longer remember much of the content?  Or do you think of mathematics as the elegant description of everything?  Maybe you are somewhere in between these polar opposites.   But no matter where you fall on this sliding scale, Ben Orlin wants you to think of math as more than a game of "meaningless marks on paper" (David  Hilbert).  

Ben Orlin lays out his premise in the introduction and then dives the reader into it.  He discusses the syntax of Algebra, looking at numbers and treating numbers as nouns in that syntax.  After he has gone through symbols, equations, graphs, errors, and rules, he takes a break and provides a phrase book - A Local's Guide to  Mathematical Vocabulary.  Orlin then drags the reader into the actions of mathematics - what he calls the Verbs.  Verbs for Orlin include the standards - addition, subtraction, multiplication, division plus squaring/cubing, exponents, logic and proofs, infinity and a host of others.  Orlin finishes off the book with famous names and mathematical folklore followed by citations and where a reader could learn more.

If the reader is looking at a different approach to mathematics, Ben Orlin's Math for English Majors will aid in that quest.He accompanies the text with bad drawings (he has written another book called Math with Bad Drawings) to illustrate his points.  Give it a try and maybe you will retain more math knowledge then when you started!