Upcoming events
A CHAST Lecture for 2011
Numbers: Their Human Aspects. Perspective from Indigenous CulturesDr. Helen Verran
History and Philosophy of Science,
University of Melbourne
When: 5:30-6:30pm, Tuesday 8 November, 2011.
Where: Old Geology Lecture Theatre. Edgeworth David Bldg, University of Sydney. Click here for map.
Cost: Admission Free. No Bookings. All Welcome.
Abstract
Many people spend a lot of time looking at numbers, or more to the point, looking through numbers at something else. In this talk I take a look at numbers as such. How can we 'see' numbers? And why would we want to? I will tell of the experience of working with teachers in primary school classrooms in Nigeria. This had me recognizing that if we are going to understand how science might come to life as a significant cultural element in places like Nigeria we need a way to see the cultural lives that things like numbers have. Having done some preliminary thinking with the help of Nigerian primary school children I turn to my experiences of working with Yolngu Aboriginal Australians who own lands in northeast Arnhem Land. I will make a rather surprising analogy which I suggest can help us better understand the sorts of things numbers are.
Helen Verran is a Reader in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne. She has a PhD in metabolic biochemistry. For most of the 1980s she worked as a science lecturer in the Institute for Education at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. Her book Science and an African Logic (2001) was published out of this experience. Since she returned to Australia she has worked with Yolngu Aboriginal communities in northeast Arnhem Land an early product of this work was the small book Singing the Land Signing the Land now available on-line.