Saturday, February 17, 2007

"Progressive" math

Alexandre Borovik's blog is my usual source of examples of semi-literate math-is-being-used-for-evil hysteria. Staying true to this blog's mission statement, I sincerely endeavor not to excessively dilute the mathematical content with politics. I also make it a general principle to rebuke outrageous claims only if they are championed by a reasonably reputable source; life is too short to engage in reasoned intellectual discourse with every obscenity-shouting hobo in the street.

For this reason, though I had seen the unhinged, lunatic rants quoted here about a week ago, I didn't see fit to address them, basically relegating this to the hobo-in-the-street category. Brief synopsis: math has cryptographic and defense applications, and we all know these are tools of imperialistic oppression to keep down the working class, man. (I am hoping that the quote by Rabelais about the evil use of frontal lobes is meant to parody Ken Burch and Kevin Laddle, but one can't know for sure.)

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