I was contacted about a year and a half ago by a journalist at the Economist that was reporting on a story. She told me that in 2020, a decorative window at Cambridge University celebrating R A Fisher and his most influential contribution to science the latin square had been removed from his former College’s dining hall. It had been taken down in response to calls from activists to reckon with Fisher’s historical involvement in eugenics research and justifying British colonialism. In modern terms, he was accused of being racist and therefore was cancelled.

I was contacted about a year and a half ago by a journalist at the Economist that was reporting on a story. She told me that in 2020, a decorative window at Cambridge University celebrating R A Fisher and his most influential contribution to science the latin square had been...

In the previous post I said that the problematic-ness of current recidivism models (ie algorithms which predict the risk of a person who committed a crime re-offending) cannot be conceptualized using only statistical knowledge. In this post I will try to quickly explain the background of this issue, show algorithmically...

It has been a while since I posted because I have been going deep in my research about the so-called “science” of recidivism modeling (ie predicting the risk that a person convicted of a crime re-offends). There are many types of recidivism prediction algorithms which are used and misused on...

In the previous post I gave an historical overview of Karl Pearson and Ronald Fishers’ research and careers. They were the leading statisticians of the age and explicitly endorsed settler colonialism and population eugenics on a global scale. In retrospect, however, their views are no less disturbing than the fact...

It is impossible to see the need to decolonize without knowing history; likewise, it is impossible to see how to decolonize without understanding history. This is not an easy history to bear but, as statisticians, it is an important one. In my own journey towards higher decolonial thinking it is...

C K Raju is an Indian mathematician, physicist, post-colonial philosopher, historian and part time statistician. Most of this post is taken directly from a talk he gave at MIT about the imperialism of expecting the post-colonial world to teach according to the MIT/Harvard MOOC’s (Massive Open Online Courses) curriculum for...

For a white middle-class, American, cis-gendered, heterosexual man like me, going through life doesn’t require much. I am not required to think about my positionality, or why the world exists as it does. I am not forced to recognize my privilege, or to justify my importance in the world. I...