John Armstrong is Reader in Financial Mathematics at King's College London.
The government has shocked the mathematics community by announcing that it is withdrawing £6 million in grant funding from a new Academy for Mathematical Sciences. The impetus for creating this Academy came from a 2018 review chaired by professor Philip Bond. His review recommended how to maximize the benefits of mathematical sciences to the UK economy
Dr Hilary Cass’s long-awaited review into healthcare for transgender children and young people was released this week. Her verdict was damning, and was delivered with Swiftian understatement: ‘The adoption of a medical treatment with uncertain risks, based on an unpublished trial that did not demonstrate clear benefit, is a departure from normal clinical practice.’ But
Last week the King’s College London LGBTQ staff network, called Proudly King’s, demonstrated its intellectual level and its view of women by tweeting a picture of a woman holding a banner saying ‘TERF FART (Feminist Appropriating Radical Transphobes)’. If you thought that endorsing this kind of behaviour would make you less likely to be promoted to professor,
In March, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) – an independent body which oversees standards and quality in UK universities – released new guidance on curriculum design in mathematics. This guidance states: ‘Values of EDI [Equality Diversity and Inclusion] should permeate the curriculum and every aspect of the learning experience.’ At least on the face
Why has the Royal Society of Chemistry published a 37 page opinion piece entitled ‘Academic free speech or right-wing grievance?’ in their new journal Digital Discovery? Digital Discovery publishes ‘theoretical and experimental research at the intersection of chemistry, materials science and biotechnology’ focusing on ‘the development and application of machine learning’. So it is a
Student activist Edred Whittingham baffled the snooker world last week by jumping onto the green baize at the Snooker World Championships in Sheffield and detonating a package of orange chalk across the table in a bid to end global warming. A few days earlier, the German government had baffled scientists by shutting down their three
This week it was revealed in the Telegraph that World Athletics is engaged in a confidential consultation with national governing bodies over the question of whether transwomen should be allowed to compete in the female category. World Athletics’ current rules allow males to compete in the female category if their legal sex is female and they have held their serum
The London School of Economics (LSE) shocked their student union this week by informing them that the university is disaffiliating from Stonewall. The union responded with horror, demanding a consultation before reversing ‘the decision to disaffiliate’. The SU has also demanded the establishment of a ‘gender expression fund to pay for items necessary to support transition’ (the equivalent
The physics department at King’s College London offers a module called ‘Gender Action’. Students studying this module go into schools and nurseries to work on projects related to the elimination of gender stereotypes. The course is run in association with a charity, also called Gender Action, who explain on their website that the problem with phrases such as
We have become used to the erosion of academic freedom in the humanities and social sciences. It is no longer surprising to find that a Gender Studies department holds the institutional view that it is racist and colonialist to say that sex is binary, or promotes a student essay which fantasises about holding a knife
Mathematicians in British universities are now being asked to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum. This autumn, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) – an independent charity which reviews university courses – launched a consultation that urged universities to teach a ‘decolonised view’ of mathematics. It is easy when you work at a university to roll your eyes
