The late Fr. Jaki who was a physicist/priest/science historian said that the Church was the mid-wife for the scientific method. He persuasively makes this case in his book “Science & Creation, from eternal cycles to an oscillating universe” where he goes through the different cultures and compares them. Quite fascinating reading how belief in eternal cycles frustrated the scientific method from developing.
So is it cultural appropriation for non-Western countries to use the scientific method?
The answer is of course no since cultural appropriation should be mocked, mocked and then mocked. Not surprised that multiculturalism has developed to this sad state. Mainly instead of “E pluribus unum” it was always more like a centrifuge separating elements from each other. So this is really the projected outcome. I much prefer the model of cultural cross-pollination where ideas and more transient aspects of culture see wider adoption. Sure this results in adaptations that stray rather far from their sources. Some of these adaptations are much more consequential than others. Culinary ones less so as there is always room for the revival of the more “authentic” and are often advertised as such. Not that there aren’t problematic adaptations. Some can be either intentionally mocking of their source or easily inferred as such.
The problem we are seeing now on College campuses is that any adaptation or even straight importation is seen as inherently evil. This is such a total fundamental understanding of the ways cultures develop and it is not based on a “clean room” environment developing totally on its own. No doubt they have zero understanding of exactly what setting the university developed in and all the other debts to Western Civilization (which of course also had cross-pollination from other cultures).
I consider it of paramount importance to try to understand the arguments of others. I can only to a very small degree understand the arguments regarding cultural appropriation. Still what annoys me most about this argument is that there are serious problems, injustices, and disparities in the world. Although I guess this is nothing new as Jesus charged the Pharisees “You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” (Mt 23:24)
