Data Talks

I don't know... Aren't statisticians supposed to be good at statistics? pic.twitter.com/fqIumTv5BP

— Joel Fish (@joelwatsonfish) January 24, 2021

Cognitive dissonance.   

First there is - 

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Kareem Carr is a statistics professor at Harvard.  Looking at his Twitter account, his posts are oddly racist and misandrist.  Apparently, he got into the "No, seriously, 2+2 can equal 5" from 2020 exploring how to deconstruct maths.  

Joel Fish is highlighting the inconsistency between Carr's stated belief versus the empirical reality.

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There is an argument in Carr's tweet but there is so much unmoored imagining and projection that it is hard to discern this as anything more than ideological assertion rather than argument.

The first assertion is that "American mathematics culture is very socially conservative even more so than other academic fields."  As always, when examining another person's argument, you have to be generous in understanding their position.  Fish demonstrates empirically that Carr's assertion is rubbish.

Universities are notoriously one sided and intolerant of intellectual diversity.  

Table 4 shows that "even more so than other academic fields" is only deceptively true.  There are 18 academic fields of which fifteen are more liberal than Mathematics.  So yes, Mathematics is more socially conservative that most academic fields.  However, only 15% of the members of the field are Republican; 85% are Democrats.  

The accurate statement is that Mathematics is overwhelmingly Democratic but is among the more intellectual diverse with at least 15% of members being of a conservative persuasion.  If Carr is upset about a 15% representation of a faction opposite his own, then that would seem to indicate a totalitarian mindset.  It would seem that his goal is 0% representation of Republicans.  

Is there a way to make assertion slightly more neutral, to put Carr's argument in a better light?  There is.

Note that in the Mathematics field there are 342 professors and only 160 (47%) affirm a party affiliation.  Yes, of those identified by party affiliation, there is an 85% skew towards Democrats.  Alternatively one can more accurately this as:  Of 342 maths professors, 47% are neutral or moderate or unaffiliated with a party, 40% are Democrats and 7% are Republican.  

If Carr views everyone to the right of him (54% moderates and Republicans) as conservative, then his declaration that "American mathematics culture is very socially conservative" could be deemed to be true.  But the opposite is true as well.  If the Republican professors view anyone to the left of them as liberal, it would be true that 93% of the professoriate are liberal.

Neither of these positions are especially credible.  Without, mishandling language and logical fallacies, then Carr's assertion of Mathematics as a socially conservative field can be rejected out of hand.

What about the argument that "You can trace a lot of the cultural norms of mathematics back to various European cultural quirks for instance the British gentleman's love of frivolous pursuits."  What cultural quirks are being invoked?  Without specific definitions or examples, this is an argument without context and is not self-evident.  Given that Europeans built on mathematical knowledge salvaged and expanded by Arab mathematicians, (Algebra (from Arabic: الجبر‎ al-jabr, meaning "reunion of broken parts") it seems unlikely that this is a sustainable argument.

The British were heirs to Greek mathematical thought and Arab mathematical thought and added their own contributions.  Was there a reason for the British to have made an outsized contribution?  Perhaps, given the importance of chronometry and geographical position to their maritime culture.  

And what of "British gentleman's love of frivolous pursuits?"  Again, unclear.  The best I can construe this is that many British mathematicians (as well as adjacent fields such as physics, engineering, philosophy, etc.) were Church of England priests.  From perhaps 1750U-1850 many such priests held parish positions with reliable incomes and few demands.  Many of them turned to academic pursuits including mathematics, astronomy, botany, ornithology, biology, etc. and made significant contributions to those fields.  But that is hard to square with a "love of frivolous pursuits."  The prosperity of the industrial revolution in combination with pocket patronage vicarages made it possible for them advance various fields but that doesn't really square with "frivolous pursuits." Perhaps it is just poor word choice.  Perhaps Carr is trying to convey "British gentleman's love of discretionary pursuits."

Ultimately we are left with a tweet that calls into question Carr's command of logic, history, or empirical evidence.

My suspicion is that this simply an ideological assertion, not a fact-based argument.