The fact that some people got the idea that math is racist is interesting, I had never heard of this before, and it might be interesting to do some research on this topic.
Now, I'm not at all convinced by the arguments present in the National Review article. I don't know what was Pythagore's color skin and I never thought about that. We also cannot change history and purposely hide the fact that some things in math are European and Greek. Such, we could call theorems by other names, but we'd better check that people feel oppressed / discriminated by this kind of stuff.
And, above all, the fact that it is generally said that zero, some fundamental stuff, was invented by Arabs, and that we call the figures we use themselves the "Arabic numerals" is not at all mentioned. Arabs are not usually exactly considered white. Leaving out such obvious counter argument has to be deliberate or it shows a monumental lack of research or thinking on the matter. So… meh?
And the Fox News article… Meh too? I guess I will let this article and its citation choices ridicule themselves.
He was also inclusive AF. Female Pythagorean philosophers (Miya, Damo, etc), multiethnic Pythagorean philosophers (Abaris), plus, his whole thing was incorporating diverse wisdom from multiple cultural sources— Egyptians, Persians, Babylonians, Jews, Greeks, etc.
He was even inclusive of animals, if you read his vegetarianism.
So, the heart of western math is a pretty solid place to look for modern morality. Just saying. We can’t expect that of the ancients, but Pythagoras really delivers. In 530BC!
His father, Mnesarchus, was a jeweler and trader from Tyre. Source: Neanthes of Cyzicus, historian, 3rd c. B.C referenced in Porphyry’s “Life of Pythagoras”
Thanks. All the sources I've looked at say his ancestry is disputed and a great source of controversy, not surprisingly, so I guess it says different stories in different texts. I don't think your tone of certainty is at all justified.
edit: Porphyry's book begins:
"Many think that Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarchus, but they differ as to the latter's race; some thinking him a Samian, while Neanthes, in the fifth book of his Fables states he was a Syrian, from the city of Tyre."
Interestingly, in the same text, Iamblichus, who studied with Porphyry and seems to have been a devoted Pythagorean, says in his Life of Pythagoras:
"From the family and alliance of this Ancaeus, founder of the colony [of Samos], were therefore descended Pythagoras's parents Mnesarchus and Pythais."
There is so little known for sure about Pythagoras — and yet so much value in his story. The guy is a legend— and due uncertainty gets in the way of a good story.
The more I read about him, the better and better it gets.
Complaints around removing non-white names from theories or teachers pre-judging and sorting students seem valid to me. Are there specific examples that are crazy?
