In a Scientific American article entitled, “Physicists Need To Be More Careful How They Name Things,” two professors and a journalist call for the abandonment of the term “quantum supremacy” in physics because it is “uncomfortably reminiscent of ‘white supremacy.” Physics Professor Ian Durham (St. Anselm College), freelance journalist Daniel Garisto, and Math Professor Karoline Wiesner (University of Bristol) all agree that the term is not racist but still believe that it must be changed to avoid “adding insult to injury.”
The term was coined in 2012 by John Preskill to describe how quantum computers can perform tasks would take even supercomputers years to complete. The authors called for “quantum supremacy” to be replaced with “quantum primacy.”
The article struggles to make the case that this clearly non-racial term holds a dangerous potential for being viewed as racist, including reference to other terms like “judicial supremacy” which would also presumably have to be abandoned:
The word supremacy—having “more power, authority or status than anyone else”—is closely linked to “white supremacy.” This isn’t supposition; it’s fact. The Corpus of Contemporary American English finds “white supremacy” is 15 times more frequent than the next most commonly used two-word phrase, “judicial supremacy.”
Since “judicial supremacy” is even more common than “quantum supremacy,” it would appear the same argument for abandonment would apply.
It is not clear if the problem is simply “supremacy.” Would Pareto superiority also raise such problems?
We have previously discussing the dropping of terms as offensive despite their clearly non-sexist or non-racist meaning. These efforts are reminiscent of our own debate at George Washington over the use of the Colonials as a moniker. The student organizers asked “When we talk about the Colonial in history, what does it mean? And is that really what we want our school identity to be?” The emphasis however is the history of colonialism in the world, not the Colonial as a term in the United States. Just as we strive to understand the meaning and traditions of other countries, there should be a modicum of effort to recognize our own meanings and traditions. The Colonials fought against foreign rule. They were not advocates of colonialism. For those interested in GW, that is part of understanding our history and our values. It simply does not matter that the Colonials were anti-colonialism. The victory is pretending that they are something that they were not and then changing the term to reject a falsely claimed meaning.
The authors take a jab at Professor Steve Pinker who we previously discussed as the target of an anti-free speech campaign. Pinker lashed out at such efforts to ban words and regulate speech. The authors reject that premise:
It is true that “supremacy” is not a magic word, that its meaning comes from convention, not conjurers. But the context of “quantum supremacy,” which Pinker neglects, is that of a historically white, male-dominated discipline. Acknowledging this by seeking better language is a basic effort to be polite, not prissy.
They are not the first to make this proposal. A 2019 letter in Nature, the magazine was called out for using “quantum advantage” and the authors argued:
In our view, ‘supremacy’ has overtones of violence, neocolonialism and racism through its association with ‘white supremacy’. Inherently violent language has crept into other branches of science as well — in human and robotic spaceflight, for example, terms such as ‘conquest’, ‘colonization’ and ‘settlement’ evoke the terra nullius arguments of settler colonialism and must be contextualized against ongoing issues of neocolonialism.
It is difficult to take issue with such articles without running the risk of being called insensitive or insufficiently concerned about racism. That is not true. Many of us fail to see how such campaigns advance real racial justice as opposed to superficial progress through cancelling campaigns. Real progress is measured by getting more minority graduate students and teachers into physics.
It’s just easier for the virtue-signaling police to do away with the words than to oppose the system itself. Anti-war anyone? Because Biden, who many of the woke mob likely voted for, is escalating in Syria and won’t leave Afghanistan by May 1st, as agreed to by the previous administration. But as long as we can obsess over words, we don’t have to pay attention to the facts on the ground.
This is getting tedious. Thurber had this sort of thing pegged back in 1957.
“The man with the map and the man with the ship sailed for the island rich with sapphires, emeralds, and rubies. Their vessel was called Aeiu, which has every vowel but O. The owner hated O because his mother had become wedged in a porthole and they couldn’t pull her in, so they had to push her out. The island, Ooroo, was inhabited by gentle people who did not resist when the pirates, unable to find any jewels, decided to get rid of all words with an O in them. Cnfusin reigned, and chas. A man named Otto Ott, when asked his name, could only stutter. Ophelia Oliver was ashamed. Babies often made as much sense as their fathers. The islanders decided there were four words with an O that must not be lost. Three of them were “hope” and “love” and “valor.” The fourth and most important is really the whole point of The Wonderful O.”
~from the dustjacket of The Wonderful O.
What, indeed, could the profession of these three be called? Perhaps pirate, like their predecessors Black and Littlejack…
This whole thing got out of hand long ago. Black civil right activists found they could make hay by complaining about the “n-word” and it’s snowballed from there. (By the way, snowball is a racist term in the minds of many.) Lunacy, it’s lunacy.
These physics people must immediately give away all their property to POC.
Would our Supreme Court have to recuse itself if a 1st amendment case regarding this word came before them?
Civilization has many problems, some, apparently, unsolvable.
Racism is a problem but falls well down the list, after the Designated Hitter but before — just before — tags in underwear.
There is, however, serious filing money in it. So, there’s that.
This is how a society devolves….
By tolerating and encouraging (1) those who are happy to be victims – whether they complain about alleged racism, sexism, or (fill in the blank)phobia and (2) those who have nothing more significant to do in life but to unquestioningly take up the causes of the other group. ..
The word supremacy is being cancelled so cancel culture is the new supremacy.
Political correctness is pure evil.
How did “slave cylinder” manage to escape scrutiny? Are cars inherently racist?
“Real progress is measured by getting more minority graduate students and teachers into physics.”
Not enough Asians?
You can’t fix this kind of stupid.
I am coming to the view that in some situations political correctness or wokeism is INDEED INSANE, although in others cases it means that stupid people are behaving as if homo sapiens sapiens who are not human in the sense of being entitled to entitled to human rights such as Black people the indigenous and Palestinians are in fact entitled to them. The meaning depends on who is saying the words.
“[P]olitical correctness or wokeism is INDEED INSANE . . .”
There’s a lot of truth in that statement.
Random word association (aka “derailment”) is a symptom of psychosis. Such as this example from Swiss psychiatrist Paul Eugen Bleuler:
“I always liked geography. My last teacher in that subject was Professor August A. He was a man with black eyes. I also like black eyes. There are also blue and grey eyes and other sorts, too…”
https://www.verywellmind.com/thinking-process-abnormalities-in-schizophrenia-2953131
There is no PH consonant combination in Swahili. We should outlaw the word Physics in an effort to combat white supremacy.
When “professors” give up their titles and leave their tenured positions in favor of people of color I will take them seriously.
Dangerously close to running the asylum, if not already
What a crock.
There is significance to the nomenclature used.
Master / Slave has significance in describing systems that has nothing to do with human slavery. Primary / Secondary as a substitution does not mean the same thing and has specific connotations that are not part of a master/slave system. (Or parent/child for that matter)
“all men are created equal” does not mean that all men are born equal.
Everyone knows that all men are not born equal.
So, what does “created”, versus born, infer?
Samsara answers that question. So I have always wondered if Jefferson knew that was the case.
Because Ian Durham, Daniel Garisto, and Karoline Wiesner, are incontrovertible proof that all men are not born equal. They have lots of company.
“Professor”. The word often is tied to people who come in the door and are best described as “went in dumb, come out dumb too”.
The loonies are racing each other for the title of “most woke”.
Like “Biggest Dwarf “.
Are we close to peak stupidity?
When will this lunacy cease?! . . or are these scientists just pulling our leg . . making fun of the current socio-political horse poo ??