Stephen Downes

I studied the history and philosophy of science for many years and, of course, have been a practicing researcher since 2001. This gives me a good perspective on Umair Haque's topic, and I would underline what he says. It's accurate. Where does culture intervene in science (and especially education)?

• assigning people into groups (national, racial, social) to study
• our choice of variables, such as 'intelligence' or 'skills'
• our description of 'all other things being equal' (aka ceteris paribus)
• the conditions (of, say, 'success') we use to test our hypothesis
• the correspondence between sample and population

In all, Haque summarizes, " Categories, variables, conditions, tests — no matter how 'hard'" the science we are doing is, these will contain values and judgments, which are cultural assumptions."