Twitter implodes after #ScienceMustFall
The movement has been met with both ridicule and support from the general public.
THE Twittersphere has been abuzz over the weekend after students from the University of Cape Town launched the #ScienceMustFall movement.
The new movement has primarily been met with comments of outrage and ridicule. This after a video of a woman speaking at a student panel discussion at the campus was captured. She said, “Western knowledge is totalising. It is saying that it was Newton and only Newton who knew and saw an apple falling and out of nowhere decided gravity existed and created an equation and that is it.”
She went on to say, “Whether people knew Newton or not‚ or whatever happens in West Africa‚ Northern Africa‚ the thing is the only way to explain gravity is through Newton, who sat under a tree and saw an apple fall.
“Decolonising the science would mean doing away with it entirely and starting all over again to deal with how we respond to the environment and how we understand it.”
A wave of responses called the student a hypocrite, because she is ‘happy’ to use ‘Western science’ such as mobile phones and electricity when it suits her, but when it doesn’t, she fights to ‘scrap’ it.
However, pro-fallists have argued that this way of thinking was exactly what the movement was against. They said the current form of science and education was focussed on the accomplishments and discoveries of the West.
It teaches the idea that science is the innovation of the white, Western man, and completely ignores the accomplishments of other nations – creating the myth that science is Western.
Related article:
#FeesMustFall students to march to harbour
https://www.citizen.co.za/north-glen-news/94263/feesmustfall-students-to-march-to-harbour/
Twitter responds:
https://twitter.com/Sheeple_Shearer/status/786845031944556544
https://twitter.com/michaelcardo/status/787876441182638080
https://twitter.com/Sthee_Gee/status/786867937001017344
https://twitter.com/psyQologist/status/786822152624467968
1. #ScienceMustFall is an insult to people like the young SA scientist, Siyabulela Xuza, who had a planet named after him in honour of …
— Maria de Andrade 🇿🇦🇺🇦🌻 (@AprilSnowGoose) October 14, 2016
https://twitter.com/Slava_Hafeni/status/786839863077330944
