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math ignorance = status symbol?

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Chris

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Dec 30, 2002, 4:12:44 PM12/30/02
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Just an observation for discussion:
It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as
a bragging right? It almost seems that people feel *proud*
when they say "Oh I'm no good at math". Where does this come
from?! If this is how young people feel today no wonder the
USA gets trounced in comparative exam. Maybe there's no need
for concern. As Scott Adams points out in the Dilbert principle,
much of human advancement has been due to a few intellectual
mutations [e.g. Einstein, Newton, Edison] with the rest of the
human race going along for the ride and pursuing more important
things such as suing McDonalds.

Dirk Van de moortel

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Dec 30, 2002, 4:36:36 PM12/30/02
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"Chris" <crue...@capu.net> wrote in message news:76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com...

> Just an observation for discussion:
> It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as
> a bragging right? It almost seems that people feel *proud*
> when they say "Oh I'm no good at math". Where does this come
> from?!

I have often wondered about that... perhaps they had a
horrible struggle with math during their school time and
they had to go through a period of frustration and fear
that they would never reach anything. And now, hey,
they are still alive and they have found a nice job and
they are successful at it. So they compensate frustration
with justified pride.
That's what I think I read in people's eyes when they
brag about being bad at math and physics... and I think
it would be how I would feel...

> If this is how young people feel today no wonder the
> USA gets trounced in comparative exam. Maybe there's no need
> for concern. As Scott Adams points out in the Dilbert principle,
> much of human advancement has been due to a few intellectual
> mutations [e.g. Einstein, Newton, Edison] with the rest of the
> human race going along for the ride and pursuing more important
> things such as suing McDonalds.

:-)

Dirk Vdm


Hop David

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Dec 30, 2002, 5:59:28 PM12/30/02
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Have you the "Malcolm In The Middle" episode where Malcolm goes from
social pariah to babe magnet when his I.Q. sinks to moron level?

Robert Israel

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Dec 30, 2002, 7:59:07 PM12/30/02
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In article <76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com>,

Chris <crue...@capu.net> wrote:
>Just an observation for discussion:
>It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as
>a bragging right? It almost seems that people feel *proud*
>when they say "Oh I'm no good at math". Where does this come
>from?!

My impression is that, while "Oh I'm no good at math" is an extremely
common response when someone is introduced to a mathematician, it is
not such a common statement in other circumstances. So it may be a
bit of an exaggeration to call this a status symbol. Still, it is
a bit puzzling why so many people will respond this way. When
introduced to a professor of literature, do they say "Oh I'm no
good at reading and writing"? Or when introduced to a musician,
"Oh I can't carry a tune"?

Robert Israel isr...@math.ubc.ca
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2

Wayne Brown

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Dec 30, 2002, 8:10:26 PM12/30/02
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Robert Israel <isr...@math.ubc.ca> wrote:

> My impression is that, while "Oh I'm no good at math" is an extremely
> common response when someone is introduced to a mathematician, it is
> not such a common statement in other circumstances. So it may be a
> bit of an exaggeration to call this a status symbol. Still, it is
> a bit puzzling why so many people will respond this way. When
> introduced to a professor of literature, do they say "Oh I'm no
> good at reading and writing"? Or when introduced to a musician,
> "Oh I can't carry a tune"?

I think it's part of the general anti-technical mindset in our society
that makes people proclaim "I can't program my VCR!" as if it were
a badge of honor. Literature and music are not perceived as "geek"
disciplines like science and mathematics. Most people seem to want to
dissociate themselves from the "white lab coat and pocket protector"
image that goes along with the public perception of technical subjects.
(With me, it's just the opposite: I actively *cultivate* that image.
That's *one* of the reasons I still carry and use slide rules.)

--
Wayne Brown | "When your tail's in a crack, you improvise
fwb...@bellsouth.net | if you're good enough. Otherwise you give
| your pelt to the trapper."
"e^(i*pi) = -1" -- Euler | -- John Myers Myers, "Silverlock"

Jason Pawloski

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Dec 30, 2002, 8:25:48 PM12/30/02
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>My impression is that, while "Oh I'm no good at math" is an extremely
>common response when someone is introduced to a mathematician, it is
>not such a common statement in other circumstances. So it may be a
>bit of an exaggeration to call this a status symbol. Still, it is
>a bit puzzling why so many people will respond this way. When
>introduced to a professor of literature, do they say "Oh I'm no
>good at reading and writing"? Or when introduced to a musician,
>"Oh I can't carry a tune"?

Yes. I play guitar as a hobby and that is a very, very common response.

I'm a physics major and, when telling strangers this, they feel compelled to
tell me how they took high schools physics and thought it was so hard, or they
remind me that there's a "lot of math" for that major, or how they could never
do that sort of math. Unfortunately, it leads up to the discussion of what I
want to do with the major, which is even more painful especially when the same
conversation is repeated ad nausem. Its gotten to the point where if I meet
someone on a superficial level (people I will never see again, or people whom
I don't really care for) and they ask what I am studying, I tell them
business. Its perfect, there is very little follow up and it usually kills the
conversation right there. I'm just waiting for someone to say, "Business, eh?
So what do you want to do with that" just so I can respond "Fly an airplane.
What the fuck do you think?"

Its interesting, I work in retail store where we sell wine. I overheard a
conversation a couple of weeks ago between the wine department head (an older
lady) and a customer. I forget the exact statistics, but she was saying
something about how she was shocked that, _as a percentage_, more people in
the United States drink wine than the European countries. She was surprised by
this fact, as was the customer, and came to a chillingly incorrect conclusion
- "But then I thought, the population of the US is so much greater than those
European countries individually, that it would make sense that we would have a
higher percentage of wine drinkers." Somewhat ironically, her daughter has a
PhD in Mathematics from University of Arizona.

I guess my point is, people who say that they are bad at math often make
statements like that. Knowing that you are mathematically capable, instead of
shocking you with how little they know or their mathematical ignorance, I
think they try to warn you ahead of time, so their mistakes are excused, and
since they warned you they won't appear to be such an idiot.

Jason

Chan-Ho Suh

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Dec 30, 2002, 8:54:27 PM12/30/02
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On Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:59:07 -0800, Robert Israel wrote:

> In article <76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com>, Chris
> <crue...@capu.net> wrote:
>>Just an observation for discussion:
>>It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as a bragging
>>right? It almost seems that people feel *proud* when they say "Oh I'm no
>>good at math". Where does this come from?!
>
> My impression is that, while "Oh I'm no good at math" is an extremely
> common response when someone is introduced to a mathematician, it is not
> such a common statement in other circumstances. So it may be a bit of
> an exaggeration to call this a status symbol. Still, it is a bit
> puzzling why so many people will respond this way. When introduced to a
> professor of literature, do they say "Oh I'm no good at reading and
> writing"? Or when introduced to a musician, "Oh I can't carry a tune"?
>

This is an oft-discussed phenomenon. My theory, to date, is that many
people are so scarred by their exposure to mathematics (or what is
presented as mathematics) that they have to respond defensively. Some
time ago on sci.math, there were some threads discussing a survey of
children (from various countries) who were asked to draw a picture of a
mathematician. Some drew frightful figures holding whips, machine guns,
etc., threateningly over cowering little children.

Edwin Clark

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Dec 30, 2002, 9:25:23 PM12/30/02
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Re this topic: check out the neat film clip at Professor Edgar's website:

http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~edgar/movie/brigitte.html

It's from from Dear Brigitte a 1965 movie. A poet (James Stewart) finds
that his 8-year-old son (Billy Mumy) is a whiz at calculations. If you
don't have quicktime to view and listen to the clip, he provides the
pertinent dialog for you.


Dave L. Renfro

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Dec 30, 2002, 9:58:30 PM12/30/02
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Chris <crue...@capu.net>
[sci.math Dec 30 2002 4:30:29:000PM]
http://mathforum.org/discuss/sci.math/m/469454/469454

wrote (in part):

> Just an observation for discussion:
> It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as
> a bragging right? It almost seems that people feel *proud*
> when they say "Oh I'm no good at math". Where does this come
> from?! If this is how young people feel today no wonder the
> USA gets trounced in comparative exam.

I don't mean for this to come off as a flame, but I'm
curious as to *when* you felt this wasn't the case. The
only time I can think of within the lifetime of anyone
here would be 1964-1970 or so, when the moon race was
in full swing. By the early 1970's things were back to
"normal" again. If anything, I think it was a lot worse
in the early to mid 1980's than it is now. With computers
and the internet so pervasive in society now, and with so
many people majoring in computer science (although the CS
degree has gotten weaker over the past 20 years, at least
with respect to math requirements), I would find it hard
to believe that the past decade was worse than the decade
before it.

Dave L. Renfro

Mensanator

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Dec 30, 2002, 10:16:46 PM12/30/02
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>Subject: Re: math ignorance = status symbol?
>From: isr...@math.ubc.ca (Robert Israel)
>Date: 12/30/2002 6:59 PM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: <auqq4r$efo$1...@nntp.itservices.ubc.ca>

>
>In article <76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com>,
>Chris <crue...@capu.net> wrote:
>>Just an observation for discussion:
>>It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as
>>a bragging right? It almost seems that people feel *proud*
>>when they say "Oh I'm no good at math". Where does this come
>>from?!
>
>My impression is that, while "Oh I'm no good at math" is an extremely
>common response when someone is introduced to a mathematician, it is
>not such a common statement in other circumstances. So it may be a
>bit of an exaggeration to call this a status symbol. Still, it is
>a bit puzzling why so many people will respond this way. When
>introduced to a professor of literature, do they say "Oh I'm no
>good at reading and writing"? Or when introduced to a musician,
>"Oh I can't carry a tune"?

I usually just say "I'm a Philistine".

James B. Sibley

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Dec 30, 2002, 10:52:56 PM12/30/02
to
crue...@capu.net (Chris) wrote in message news:<76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com>...

I notice it is popular with the popular students. I am in AP calc and
physics... those that "complain" about being bad at math and physics
are the more popular students... I suppose that if I were one of them
and I did not have anything to speak of... I would try to spark a
conversation on how physics and calc is hurting my GPA. :-P

James Sibley

Leroy Quet

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Dec 30, 2002, 11:17:19 PM12/30/02
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crue...@capu.net (Chris) wrote in message news:<76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com>...

Your comments aren't that far off probably.
I always thought that people saying that they weren't good at math was
just a form of modesty.
But now you have got me wondering, since most people don't give up
little pieces of self-criticism as much as they should.
Now, usually when someone says this, they say it with a
seemingly-being-modest smirk on their faces.
And they are saying it to ME after they find out about my math
interest.
So, at least, they are PRETENDING to just be modest...
:)

Thanks,
Leroy Quet

George

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Dec 31, 2002, 1:00:56 AM12/31/02
to
> >My impression is that, while "Oh I'm no good at math" is an extremely
> >common response when someone is introduced to a mathematician,

> I guess my point is, people who say that they are bad at math often make
> statements like that.

Brilliant ... stop the press ...

Jeremy

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Dec 31, 2002, 6:30:19 AM12/31/02
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"Jason Pawloski" <jpaw...@nemesissoftware.com> wrote in message
news:wm6Q9.16435$oy5.7...@news2.west.cox.net...

One of our local news stations was reporting that 10% of power customers
would see an increase in price by some amount. They proceeded to elaborate
on percent by stating "that means for every one hundred customers, ten of
them will be paying more." Amazing. IMHO, if you needed this explained to
you, you've got more problems than power becoming more expensive. I'd like
to see these people try to budget for the increase (assuming they have a
budget...).


Jeremy

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Dec 31, 2002, 6:37:10 AM12/31/02
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"Chris" <crue...@capu.net> wrote in message
news:76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com...

I've always thought this too. Then the answer came to me when I was staring
at a bell curve--most people are stupid ;).

Seriously, though, I think it's because of the way "math" is taught in
schools. I use quotes because I don't know what they taught in the schools
I went to, but it wasn't math! I was interested in math in high school, I
studied it a lot, but the teachers only served to irritate and confuse me.
I tried to get out of the math I was in and get skipped ahead, but they
basically told me I wasn't smart enough (coincidently, after 10th grade I
started going to college and have now taken through Calc 3 and linear
algebra (I'm in 12th grade now)).

--
Cognoscetis veritatem et veritas Liberabit vos

Remove pants to reply.


Marc Olschok

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Dec 31, 2002, 9:01:27 AM12/31/02
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If sex was taught in school, the human race would be extinct by now.

Moreover, people might feel proud of surviving in our society without
mathematical skills, similar to a person who cannot read or write but
nevertheless survives.

Marc

Herman Jurjus

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Dec 31, 2002, 9:20:24 AM12/31/02
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"Dirk Van de moortel" <dirkvand...@ThankS-NO-SperM.hotmail.com> wrote
in message news:E%2Q9.80440$Ti2....@afrodite.telenet-ops.be...

>
> "Chris" <crue...@capu.net> wrote in message
news:76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com...
> > Just an observation for discussion:
> > It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as
> > a bragging right? It almost seems that people feel *proud*
> > when they say "Oh I'm no good at math". Where does this come
> > from?!
>
> I have often wondered about that... perhaps they had a
> horrible struggle with math during their school time and
> they had to go through a period of frustration and fear
> that they would never reach anything. And now, hey,
> they are still alive and they have found a nice job and
> they are successful at it. So they compensate frustration
> with justified pride.

For what it's worth, i think it is much worse than that. Being bad at math
is indeed considered 'chique' in certain circles.
John Allen Paulos (the author of a quite famous booklet about illiteracy, a
few years ago) mentions how he discovered math.
In short: in mathematics, he could be right without the teacher's approval
(= without being the son of a lawyer or the mayor).
In other words: if you are the son of the mayor or of a big entrepeneur, you
don't need math to be respected;
you simply are the mathematician's boss.

math ignorance = status symbol? Absolutely.
Will it remain so, in the future? I don't know. The fewer mathematicians
there are, the worse it will get, i'm afraid.

Cheers,
Herman Jurjus

Rick Decker

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Dec 31, 2002, 10:24:20 AM12/31/02
to

Chris wrote:

> Just an observation for discussion:
> It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as
> a bragging right? It almost seems that people feel *proud*
> when they say "Oh I'm no good at math". Where does this come
> from?!


In my experience, it's not that people are bragging about their
lack of mathematical ability. When I'm talking with someone
who doesn't know me and I mention that I have an advanced degree
in mathematics, I do indeed get the "I'm no good at math" response
more often than not, but my take on this is that the person
is confessing, rather than bragging. Many people seem to have
some idea that math is important, coupled with a feeling that
this important area is beyond them. What I find interesting is
that when I meet a talented musician, athlete, or salesman,
I never feel the same compulsion to confess that I was never
very good at sales, for instance. Whether this asymmetry is
due to a difference in popular perception between mathematics
and other fields or simply due to my natural arrogance, deponent
sayeth not.

<snip>


Regards,

Rick


Mark Watson

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Dec 31, 2002, 11:43:55 AM12/31/02
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"Dave L. Renfro" <renf...@cmich.edu> wrote in message
news:28ae5e5e.02123...@posting.google.com...

> Chris <crue...@capu.net>
> [sci.math Dec 30 2002 4:30:29:000PM]
> http://mathforum.org/discuss/sci.math/m/469454/469454
>
> wrote:
>
> With computers
> and the internet so pervasive in society now, and with so
> many people majoring in computer science (although the CS
> degree has gotten weaker over the past 20 years, at least
> with respect to math requirements), I would find it hard
> to believe that the past decade was worse than the decade
> before it.

I often hear "I'm no good at math"/"I hate mathematics" as to why a
classmate can't solve an algorithmics assignment. Lots of people, it seems,
just want to program... in something procedural; functional languages are
met with similar distain.

mark


Bart Goddard

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Dec 31, 2002, 12:06:17 PM12/31/02
to
crue...@capu.net (Chris) wrote in
news:76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com:

> they say "Oh I'm no good at math".

And my response is always. "Do you have change for a $20?"

Bart Goddard

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Dec 31, 2002, 12:17:55 PM12/31/02
to
Rick Decker <rde...@hamilton.edu> wrote in news:3E11B6A4.5090307
@hamilton.edu:

> but my take on this is that the person
> is confessing, rather than bragging. Many people seem to have
> some idea that math is important, coupled with a feeling that
> this important area is beyond them. What I find interesting is
> that when I meet a talented musician, athlete, or salesman,
> I never feel the same compulsion to confess that I was never
> very good at sales, for instance. Whether this asymmetry is
> due to a difference in popular perception between mathematics
> and other fields or simply due to my natural arrogance, deponent
> sayeth not.

They're certainly either confessing or making sure that
one topic of conversation is clearly off limits. But I
think that whether you are arrogant is moot, and rather
that the asymmetry is due to the natural *esoteric-ness* of
mathematics which other areas of endeavor lack. Almost
anyone can join in an intelligent conversation on history
or sales at some level, but mention even the elementary
phrase "abelian group" and you've every one below 4 standard
deviations above the norm.

There are tons of movies about athletes and musicians and such.
But look how amazed we are when they finally work a bit of
mathematics into a movie (and look how gently they brush the
math so that it will be genuine without crushing the audiences!

A Ph.D. in mathematics could read a dissertation in history
with a fair understanding. But a Ph.D. in history could
not read a dissertaion in mathematics. Not even the first
page. This points up, not the superiority of our field, but
its *esoteric-ness*. I think this is the source of the asymmetry.

Bart

David W. Cantrell

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Dec 31, 2002, 2:25:40 PM12/31/02
to
Bart Goddard <godd...@concordia.edu> wrote:
> A Ph.D. in mathematics could read a dissertation in history
> with a fair understanding. But a Ph.D. in history could
> not read a dissertaion in mathematics. Not even the first
> page. This points up, not the superiority of our field, but
> its *esoteric-ness*.

This reminds me of an anecdote. Two friends of mine, wife and husband, were
in graduate school in mathematics and physics, resp. A certain acquaintance
of theirs, working on her Ph.D. in history, eventually became aware of --
and appalled at! -- the glacial pace at which graduate texts in mathematics
and physics were being covered. She asked my friends to _please_ lend her
one of their texts so that she could see whether such slow coverage was
justified or not. They protested, but she was insistent, and so they lent
her a text on general relativity. The _next day_ she returned it to them,
gleefully proclaiming that she had finished reading it. They asked her if
she had understood it. She said that she had. As they parted, she said, as
an afterthought, that she had wondered why, in fractions like dy/dx, the
authors never reduced it by cancelling the factors of d.

Cheers,

--
David W. Cantrell

David Kastrup

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Dec 31, 2002, 4:15:55 PM12/31/02
to
"Mark Watson" <mark.SN...@usask.ca> writes:

> I often hear "I'm no good at math"/"I hate mathematics" as to why a
> classmate can't solve an algorithmics assignment. Lots of people,
> it seems, just want to program... in something procedural;
> functional languages are met with similar distain.

And things like
((lambda (f g n) ((f f g) n))
(lambda (f g) (lambda (n) (g (f f g) n)))
(lambda (f n) (if (< n 1) 1 (* n (f (- n 1)))))
5)

are _so_ cute (this is Scheme: pepper it with appropriate funcall s
if you are Lispishly inclined).

--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

David Kastrup

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Dec 31, 2002, 4:21:15 PM12/31/02
to
Marc Olschok <sa7...@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> writes:

> If sex was taught in school, the human race would be extinct by now.

There is significant negative correlation between education and sexual
reproduction.

Dr. Michael Albert

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Dec 31, 2002, 5:17:26 PM12/31/02
to
On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, Herman Jurjus wrote:

> John Allen Paulos (the author of a quite famous booklet about illiteracy, a
> few years ago) mentions how he discovered math.
> In short: in mathematics, he could be right without the teacher's approval
> (= without being the son of a lawyer or the mayor).

I have always thought it very significant that the final
insult in Orwell's _1984_ involved an addition problem.

Happy New Year!

-Mike


flip

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Dec 31, 2002, 5:40:40 PM12/31/02
to
"Bart Goddard" <godd...@concordia.edu> wrote in message
news:Xns92F5755D0...@66.150.105.101...

> A Ph.D. in mathematics could read a dissertation in history
> with a fair understanding. But a Ph.D. in history could
> not read a dissertaion in mathematics. Not even the first
> page. This points up, not the superiority of our field, but
> its *esoteric-ness*. I think this is the source of the asymmetry.
>
> Bart

I have been told that history instructors at MIT could indeed read and
understand such papers.

Don't know it for a fact, but it could easily be true.

Flip


Robert Israel

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Dec 31, 2002, 6:40:36 PM12/31/02
to
In article <aus7vn$8o$1...@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>,
Marc Olschok <sa7...@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> wrote:

>Moreover, people might feel proud of surviving in our society without
>mathematical skills, similar to a person who cannot read or write but
>nevertheless survives.

But in fact people who cannot read or write are usually not proud of it.
So much so that they sometimes go to great lengths to hide the problem
rather than seeking help. Lack of math skills carries much less of a
social stigma.

Perhaps a better example where the lack of a skill can be a source of
pride is a unilingual person in a bilingual country - the lack of skill
in the other language could be considered as a badge of identification
with the speakers of his own language.

Dr. Michael Albert

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Dec 31, 2002, 7:57:40 PM12/31/02
to
On 31 Dec 2002, Robert Israel wrote:
> But in fact people who cannot read or write are usually not proud of it.
> So much so that they sometimes go to great lengths to hide the problem
> rather than seeking help. Lack of math skills carries much less of a
> social stigma.
>
> Perhaps a better example where the lack of a skill can be a source of
> pride is a unilingual person in a bilingual country - the lack of skill
> in the other language could be considered as a badge of identification
> with the speakers of his own language.

As for things like math, singing, foreign languages, I suspect
that for many people the fact simply is that, if I can't do
something, I *can* at least be honest and forthright about it.
Basic literacy is the exception because the majority of people
obtain some degree of literacy at a young age and the consequences
of illiteracy are immediate and drastic, so this is in a different
category.

Of course, it could also be that people are proud of not being
good at math as a mark of affiliation or rather dis-affiliation,
as you mention with foreign languages. After all, who would
want to be associated with folks who are spending New Year's Eve
in front of a computer :-).

Happy New Year to all! I hope 2003 will be a prime year for everyone!


Best wishes,
Mike

Mensanator

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Dec 31, 2002, 8:50:40 PM12/31/02
to
>Subject: Re: math ignorance = status symbol?
>From: Bart Goddard godd...@concordia.edu
>Date: 12/31/2002 11:06 AM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: <Xns92F57363A...@66.150.105.101>

It's always a laugh when the cash register breaks down at the local gas station
and the clerks have to make change by hand. Three times she kept giving me too
much change and was annoyed when I kept trying to give it back to her. Someone
behind me in line mumbled something at which she hissed

"I graduated from High School!"

Finally, walking out with her best attempt (still in my favor), I heard the guy
behind me say

"Ok, I've got three donuts at $0.69 each..."

Chergarj

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Jan 1, 2003, 12:27:08 AM1/1/03
to
>> they say "Oh I'm no good at math".
>
>And my response is always. "Do you have change for a $20?"
>

Good point!
I have seen several students assessment work on which most problems were
missed, but certain money problems were answered correctly. Amazing!

G C

Randy Poe

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Jan 2, 2003, 11:11:40 AM1/2/03
to
Chris wrote:
> Just an observation for discussion:
> It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as
> a bragging right? It almost seems that people feel *proud*
> when they say "Oh I'm no good at math". Where does this come
> from?!

I've seen it in nationally-known writers and artistic
types. Being brilliant in something else goes a long
way toward forgiving the sentiment.

However, I can still work up a good head of steam over
the Washington Post columnist who wrote an editorial
something like 10 years ago on removing all mathematics
requirements from school After all, he'd never seen a
job ad that required somebody to solve a quadratic
equation.

> If this is how young people feel today no wonder the
> USA gets trounced in comparative exam.

By the time you get to graduate school, the US population
competes fine. And the brightest students in US high
schools are also fine on the world competitive stage.
We just fail to hold our average to a high standard
at the high-school level and below.

- Randy

Randy Poe

unread,
Jan 2, 2003, 11:13:52 AM1/2/03
to
Jeremy wrote:
> "Jason Pawloski" <jpaw...@nemesissoftware.com> wrote in message
> news:wm6Q9.16435$oy5.7...@news2.west.cox.net...
>
> One of our local news stations was reporting that 10% of power customers
> would see an increase in price by some amount. They proceeded to elaborate
> on percent by stating "that means for every one hundred customers, ten of
> them will be paying more." Amazing. IMHO, if you needed this explained to
> you, you've got more problems than power becoming more expensive.

Obviously you haven't stood at a retail counter recently,
waiting impatiently while the clerk struggled to figure
out a 10% discount with a calculator.

- Randy

Randy Poe

unread,
Jan 2, 2003, 11:16:24 AM1/2/03
to
Jeremy wrote:
> "Chris" <crue...@capu.net> wrote in message
> news:76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com...
>
> I've always thought this too. Then the answer came to me when I was staring
> at a bell curve--most people are stupid ;).
>
> Seriously, though, I think it's because of the way "math" is taught in
> schools. I use quotes because I don't know what they taught in the schools
> I went to, but it wasn't math!

There's something to that. I hated the subject of "History"
in school, and much to my regret never took a History course
in college. I say "regret" because I have learned as an
adult that I love History and I'm fascinated by it. I just
hated "History".

- Randy

Bart Goddard

unread,
Jan 2, 2003, 12:12:16 PM1/2/03
to
"flip" <flip_...@safebunch.com> wrote in news:1041374308.350101@news-
1.nethere.net:

I was an undergrad at MIT, and I'm pretty sure that the
non-technical instructor that could have read the first
sentence of my dissertation ("...\zeta(s) be the Reimann
zeta function....") with understanding was a very rare bird.

The "humanities" departments seemed, from my perspective at
the time, to be in their own worlds.

Bart

Tralfaz

unread,
Jan 2, 2003, 3:57:12 PM1/2/03
to
Here's my favorite:
"I can't help my child with their homework. I'm no good at math."
BTW: I teach 7th grade Pre-Alg which (in LAUSD) is re-hashed 5th grade math.
In addition to the parent saying basically," I can't read a math book and do
basic arithmetic." it also tells the student that it's OK to be bad at
math.

-Tralfaz

"Wayne Brown" <fwb...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:686Q9.4301$us1...@news.bellsouth.net...


> Robert Israel <isr...@math.ubc.ca> wrote:
>
> > My impression is that, while "Oh I'm no good at math" is an extremely

jmfb...@aol.com

unread,
Jan 3, 2003, 7:12:16 AM1/3/03
to
In article <av1ok...@enews1.newsguy.com>,
Randy Poe <rp...@nospam.com> wrote:

Yay!

Yup. That happened to me, too. College history didn't
help either although I only took what I had to take. At
least you discovered that history is interesting earlier than
I did :-).

The tradition of hating math has also been reenforced by that
fucking idiot who is a female columnist with one claim to fame.

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

A N Neil

unread,
Jan 3, 2003, 1:12:41 PM1/3/03
to
>
> Good point!
> I have seen several students assessment work on which most problems were
> missed, but certain money problems were answered correctly. Amazing!
>
> G C

There is some old teaching theory that is based on this.
Give them problems they are interested in...
For example (remember, this is a really old theory): baseball
statistics for boys, cooking measurements for girls.

Herman Rubin

unread,
Jan 3, 2003, 1:17:46 PM1/3/03
to
In article <76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com>,

Chris <crue...@capu.net> wrote:
>Just an observation for discussion:
>It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as
>a bragging right? It almost seems that people feel *proud*
>when they say "Oh I'm no good at math". Where does this come
>from?! If this is how young people feel today no wonder the
>USA gets trounced in comparative exam. Maybe there's no need
>for concern. As Scott Adams points out in the Dilbert principle,
>much of human advancement has been due to a few intellectual
>mutations [e.g. Einstein, Newton, Edison] with the rest of the
>human race going along for the ride and pursuing more important
>things such as suing McDonalds.

A quote from memory from George Bernard Shaw:

The reasonable man adapts himself to his environment.
The unreasonable man attempts to adapt his environment
to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the
unreasonable man.

The problem is that the reasonable man often restricts the
unreasonable one; this is especially the case when things
are government-run.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Deptartment of Statistics, Purdue University
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

Bart Goddard

unread,
Jan 3, 2003, 2:05:31 PM1/3/03
to
A N Neil <ann...@nym.alias.net> wrote in
news:030120031312413892%ann...@nym.alias.net:

I don't think it needs to be "interest" so much as that
there has to be at least the tiniest bit of interconnection
and relevance.

E.g., There is this goal of adding fractions. Long before
the elementary teachers try to teach adding fractions, they
spend a good bit of time teaching gcd's and lcm's. From the
student's perspective, the lcm is a disembodied bit of math.
Forget whether it's useful for anything to anybody. The
problem is that it's _connected_ to nothing.

If only there were some _reason_ for learning about lcm's. Well,
actually, there is. In a couple years, the curriculum gets around
to needing least common denominators.

So I always think that a topic should wait quietly in the wings
until it's needed. When the student is aware of the gap in his
knowledge, then it is 100 times easier to fit the missing piece
into the puzzle.

Everyone on this newsgroup has their pet theories about "what's
wrong with math education", and _one_ of mine is the very pervasive
tendencies to try to "set everything up" before hand and the
pull off a big punch line.

Look at the typical abstract algebra sequence for senior undergrads
(Hungerford or Herstein, say.) This is a course of nothing but
bits and pieces of things so that the student can study something
interesting later. From the student's view, he learns what
a group is, and some elementary structure theorems, maybe even
Sylow theory, but all he can do is classify groups. Whoop-de-do.
Then some ring theory. Ditto. He works pretty darn hard for
two semesters and doesn't see anything deep, except finally at
the end Galois theory, and even that doesn't get him very much
mileage, and is only a tool for some stuff he gets to do later.

This is just a guess, but I think I would have had a lot more fun
in school if the courses had been called "Roots of Polynomials"
and "Fermat's Last Theorem" and we set about solving problems,
running into snags, looking at solutions to those snags, etc.

Same material, but a whooping lot more interesting than the
motivation I was getting: "It may be that we might want to
classify all groups of order 60..."

Bart

John

unread,
Jan 3, 2003, 10:32:00 PM1/3/03
to
Chan-Ho Suh <s...@math.ucdavis.nospam.edu> wrote in message news:<pan.2002.12.30.17....@math.ucdavis.nospam.edu>...

> On Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:59:07 -0800, Robert Israel wrote:
>
> > In article <76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com>, Chris
> > <crue...@capu.net> wrote:
> >>Just an observation for discussion:
> >>It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as a bragging
> >>right? It almost seems that people feel *proud* when they say "Oh I'm no
> >>good at math". Where does this come from?!
> >
> > My impression is that, while "Oh I'm no good at math" is an extremely
> > common response when someone is introduced to a mathematician, it is not
> > such a common statement in other circumstances. So it may be a bit of
> > an exaggeration to call this a status symbol. Still, it is a bit
> > puzzling why so many people will respond this way. When introduced to a
> > professor of literature, do they say "Oh I'm no good at reading and

> > writing"? Or when introduced to a musician, "Oh I can't carry a tune"?
> >
>
> This is an oft-discussed phenomenon. My theory, to date, is that many
> people are so scarred by their exposure to mathematics (or what is
> presented as mathematics) that they have to respond defensively. Some
> time ago on sci.math, there were some threads discussing a survey of
> children (from various countries) who were asked to draw a picture of a
> mathematician. Some drew frightful figures holding whips, machine guns,
> etc., threateningly over cowering little children.

Based on what goes on in 'forums' like sci.math/sci.logic,
on which such amateurs as JSH (and myself) must depend for
informed critique, these perceptions are absolutely right.

--John

Peter L. Montgomery

unread,
Jan 3, 2003, 11:38:22 PM1/3/03
to
In article <Xns92F5755D0...@66.150.105.101>
Bart Goddard <godd...@concordia.edu> writes:

>A Ph.D. in mathematics could read a dissertation in history
>with a fair understanding. But a Ph.D. in history could
>not read a dissertaion in mathematics. Not even the first
>page. This points up, not the superiority of our field, but
>its *esoteric-ness*. I think this is the source of the asymmetry.
>
>Bart

At one time my mother was an artist. She asked me
to critique her paintings. I told her I felt as competent
doing that as she would feel critiquing my mathematical papers.

--
A local drug store selling wine boasts a drug and alcohol free workplace.
A local grocery store advertises Hot Buys even on frozen foods.
Peter-Lawren...@cwi.nl Home: San Rafael, California
Microsoft Research and CWI

Jason P

unread,
Jan 4, 2003, 5:00:35 AM1/4/03
to
Randy Poe <rp...@nospam.com> wrote in message news:<av1og...@enews1.newsguy.com>...

Hah! I used to work at OfficeMax, and a (college-graduate) employee
came up to me one day and asked how to calculate a 15% discount with a
calculator.

Jason Pawloski

jmfb...@aol.com

unread,
Jan 4, 2003, 9:25:05 AM1/4/03
to
In article <51566c78.03010...@posting.google.com>,

Better an OfficeMax employee than your pharmacist.

James B. Sibley

unread,
Jan 4, 2003, 1:11:46 PM1/4/03
to
pawl...@aol.com (Jason P) wrote in message news:<51566c78.03010...@posting.google.com>...

Take the total. Make a rational fraction such that total/pi(x) where
the function pi gives the number of prime number from x to 2. Find the
limit of this rational fuction as x->15. He has the total.

Herman Rubin

unread,
Jan 5, 2003, 3:38:05 PM1/5/03
to
In article <Xns92F887AA1...@66.150.105.101>,


....................

>> There is some old teaching theory that is based on this.
>> Give them problems they are interested in...
>> For example (remember, this is a really old theory): baseball
>> statistics for boys, cooking measurements for girls.

>I don't think it needs to be "interest" so much as that
>there has to be at least the tiniest bit of interconnection
>and relevance.

I think both are wrong. Education is for the future, often
the distant future, and some time spent on learning what is
basic pays off huge dividends later. On the other hand,
concentrating on what is relevant now may require major
unlearning later, and this is difficult. It is important
to learn concepts very early.

>E.g., There is this goal of adding fractions. Long before
>the elementary teachers try to teach adding fractions, they
>spend a good bit of time teaching gcd's and lcm's. From the
>student's perspective, the lcm is a disembodied bit of math.
>Forget whether it's useful for anything to anybody. The
>problem is that it's _connected_ to nothing.

And what if the fractions are from some non-Euclidean
integral domain? There is no reason whatever to present
addition of fractions using the "lowest common denominator";
the equivalence of a/b with ca/cb, where b and c are both
non-zero, renders all of this unnecessary.

BTW, few elementary school teachers know how to compute the
gcd or the lcm except by trial and error. It is also rarely
taught before addition of fractions.

>If only there were some _reason_ for learning about lcm's. Well,
>actually, there is. In a couple years, the curriculum gets around
>to needing least common denominators.

See the above; anyone who thinks that least common
denominators are needed does not understand mathematics.
They may be of some utility, but that is all.

>So I always think that a topic should wait quietly in the wings
>until it's needed. When the student is aware of the gap in his
>knowledge, then it is 100 times easier to fit the missing piece
>into the puzzle.

This is completely wrong. I have had a student tell me
that the biggest problem he had with topology is that he
had the usual undergraduate analysis course, which started
with Euclidean spaces, and based everything on metrics.
The special cases have too much in common which the student
can find and use; these need to be discarded.

Also, learning how to calculate ANYTHING is likely to make
it hard to understand the underlying concepts. Those are
the important parts.

>Everyone on this newsgroup has their pet theories about "what's
>wrong with math education", and _one_ of mine is the very pervasive
>tendencies to try to "set everything up" before hand and the
>pull off a big punch line.

We do not need punch lines, but we need logical developments
going as far back as possible.

>Look at the typical abstract algebra sequence for senior undergrads
>(Hungerford or Herstein, say.) This is a course of nothing but
>bits and pieces of things so that the student can study something
>interesting later.

On the contrary, it is a logical development of the basic
ideas, at least as we understand them now.

From the student's view, he learns what
>a group is, and some elementary structure theorems, maybe even
>Sylow theory, but all he can do is classify groups.

You do not seem to appreciate the "elementary structure
theorems". I do NOT include Sylow theory in this.

Whoop-de-do.
>Then some ring theory. Ditto. He works pretty darn hard for
>two semesters and doesn't see anything deep,

The same is true here. The importance of rings lies in the
basic structures; concepts are NOT deep, and most important
results are not deep, either. The first proof of the
Central Limit Theorem was quite deep, but even that proof
can be made fairly straightforward using some SIMPLE
results, and one can prove it in one of the most general
forms using only Taylor series with remainders going up to
the second and third power, and some undergraduate
analysis. The "deep" theorems are typically what we do not
see in their simple forms.

except finally at
>the end Galois theory, and even that doesn't get him very much
>mileage, and is only a tool for some stuff he gets to do later.

I have used much of group and ring theory, but I have not
had occasion to apply Galois theory. The material in the
abstract algebra course should be in high school, before
linear algebra makes it complicated; in fact, my introduction
to linear algebra was a few weeks in an abstract algebra
course. One can add details later. Abstract mathematics
needs to start early, before one gets too involved in cute
special results.

>This is just a guess, but I think I would have had a lot more fun
>in school if the courses had been called "Roots of Polynomials"
>and "Fermat's Last Theorem" and we set about solving problems,
>running into snags, looking at solutions to those snags, etc.

Try to get understanding, not answers. For those problems for
which the solution is at all known, the important part is the
formulation, not the solution. This requires the concepts.

Set theory is a good example. Most mathematicians now only
get pieces when they are applied in some course. So they
get a few pieces here, badly taught as the basic structure
is absent, and a few there, with huge overlap, etc. A
one-semester course BEFORE it is needed will make the now
somewhat mysterious applications very straightforward.

>Same material, but a whooping lot more interesting than the
>motivation I was getting: "It may be that we might want to
>classify all groups of order 60..."

Instead of looking for cute problems, or answers, try to
understand the concepts.

Ken Pledger

unread,
Jan 6, 2003, 6:10:47 PM1/6/03
to
In article <76a07486.0212...@posting.google.com>,
crue...@capu.net (Chris) wrote:

> ....


> It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as
> a bragging right? It almost seems that people feel *proud*

> when they say "Oh I'm no good at math"....


This has led to some interesting discussion, but I wonder about the
very simple practical matter of how to answer such remarks. Deep thoughts
about the place of mathematics in the world are probably out of place.

My usual reply is light-hearted: "Fine! If everyone was good at it,
I'd be out of a job." This tends to produce a good-natured laugh and
defuse the situation. But does anyone have a better joke than that, or
another approach that works?

Ken Pledger.

Lovecraftesque

unread,
Jan 8, 2003, 10:51:47 AM1/8/03
to
On Mon, 30 Dec 2002 13:12:44 -0800, Chris wrote:

> Just an observation for discussion:

> It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as a bragging
> right? It almost seems that people feel *proud* when they say "Oh I'm no
> good at math".

I wouldn't know about that, although I would not be
surprised if you are right. What I find puzzling is the
principle that anyone could feel proud about their
ignorance of one of the fundamental pillars of human
knowledge.

Russell Easterly

unread,
Jan 14, 2003, 12:02:58 AM1/14/03
to

"Lovecraftesque" <Lovecra...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.01.08.15...@yahoo.com...

No self respecting high school student would want to be mistaken
for one of those nerdy type that is good at math.

I told my co-workers that I was interested in math
and now they bring me weird math problems to solve.
Of course, I work with a bunch of nerds.


Russell
- 2 many 2 count


Carl Devore

unread,
Jan 14, 2003, 12:30:32 AM1/14/03
to

On Mon, 30 Dec 2002 13:12:44 -0800, Chris wrote:
> Just an observation for discussion:
> It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as a bragging
> right? It almost seems that people feel *proud* when they say "Oh I'm no
> good at math".

I would not say that it is generally a point of pride. However, it does
not convey the amount of shame that perhaps it should. One rarely hears
the same people saying, in the same tone of voice, "I'm no good at problem
solving."

Bob Pease

unread,
Jan 14, 2003, 12:52:06 PM1/14/03
to

"Carl Devore" <dev...@math.udel.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.33.030114...@naxos.math.udel.edu...

To get on my usual soapbox, a good deal of this is because of the corrupt
takeover of American ( et al??) Education by the Sports Entertainment
Industry.
Every kid out for sports thinks he has a change to GO PRO if he just has the
right heart for it, despite that you have a better chance to be Movie or TV
Star.,

They need an audience of frustrated clones who remember their own high
school jock daze, and who think they're educated because of Math and Science
ignorance, when in fact they're not educated in anything else, either.
When the high point of your week is to watch a drunk named Bo Cephus ( from
Bucephalus, after his dad's friend's ventriquolist dummy) scream hoarse
(horse?)lyrics amidst cataclysmic explosions of giant football helmets... We
be in BIG DOODOO, DOODZ!!!
Actually , I think that Football is a very fine game, provided it's not
played by human beings who get hurt, and generate a betting industry on
their chances of adequate recovery for the next game.
Think of the civil disorder that would ensue if Flag football were required.
It would be called "FAG" Football. and billions of dollars would be lost in
advertising revenue.
ARE YA READY FER SUM *FOOT*BALL!!!!!????


To me, it is very unfortunate that the Anti-nerd prejudice has become PC
among the half-assed pincez-nez Literati as well.
A scientifically and Mathematically ignorant avant-guarde is an invitation
to collapse of the society. It's hard to find an American in the Math or
Science wing at UT or Berkeley..

I still run across the "Anyone good at Math and Science just COULDN'T be
adequate in the AHRS, doncha know.." crap.
despite the fact that I have done gigs and entered stuff in painting shows
since I was a teenager, and know lotsa folks who are the same.
I suppose that some of this might be labeled as "Sour grapes" but I couldn't
have even made junior varsity in any of the high school sports, but I took
Judo and Tennis later, but kinda sucked at those .

Actually , I am proud to be a GEEK, rather than a nerd.
(a GEEK is a nerd with power, and frequently a liberal arts education.)
I have to admit that my education in Social Sciences was retarded, due
mainly to people like St. Lou Kellogg, the Coach who taught by reading
yellow notes on the blackboard, which were to be copied into notebooks by
students.
I probably would score in the lower 20%ile in a GRE history test, placing me
in the UPPER 20%ile of the US population, but it's still a shame.

Bob Pease

MCKAY john

unread,
Jan 14, 2003, 4:51:07 PM1/14/03
to
In article <b01io6$o...@dispatch.concentric.net>,

Social Sciences is a misnomer. There is little Science in it. The main
difference between the hard sciences and the humanities is that one cannot
pretend and waffle to get through exams. Lack of knowledge does not seem
to be as significant in causing failure as in Math.

>mainly to people like St. Lou Kellogg, the Coach who taught by reading
>yellow notes on the blackboard, which were to be copied into notebooks by
>students.
>I probably would score in the lower 20%ile in a GRE history test, placing me
>in the UPPER 20%ile of the US population, but it's still a shame.
>
>Bob Pease
>
>
>
>
>


--
But leave the wise to wrangle, and with me
the quarrel of the universe let be;
and, in some corner of the hubbub couched,
make game of that which makes as much of thee.

Bob Pease

unread,
Jan 14, 2003, 8:06:35 PM1/14/03
to

"MCKAY john" <mc...@cs.concordia.ca> wrote in message
news:b020ob$mut$1...@newsflash.concordia.ca...

Thanks , John
*****************
Ah Love! could you and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of
Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits - and then Re - mould it
nearer to the Heart's Desire!

But see! The rising Moon of Heav'n again Looks for us, Sweet - heart,
through the quivering Plane: How oft hereafter rising will she look Among
those leaves - for one of us in vain!

And when Yourself with silver Foot shall pass Among the Guests Star -
scatter'd on the Grass, And in your joyous errand reach the spot Where I
made One - turn down an empty Glass!
********************

I think it would be easy to Fitzgeraldize and JOIN Phucquers with Bud and
Guinness rather than a jug of wine. and Burger King instead of a loaf of
bread,...
besides, isn't BO Cephus' singing as about as " in the wilderness " as you
can get???

yet,.....

Dr. Sidethink


Herman Rubin

unread,
Jan 15, 2003, 3:26:01 PM1/15/03
to
In article <b01io6$o...@dispatch.concentric.net>,
Bob Pease <bobp...@concentric.net> wrote:

>"Carl Devore" <dev...@math.udel.edu> wrote in message
>news:Pine.GSO.4.33.030114...@naxos.math.udel.edu...


>> On Mon, 30 Dec 2002 13:12:44 -0800, Chris wrote:
>> > Just an observation for discussion:
>> > It is just me or do people nowadays treat math ignorance as a bragging
>> > right? It almost seems that people feel *proud* when they say "Oh I'm no
>> > good at math".

>> I would not say that it is generally a point of pride. However, it does
>> not convey the amount of shame that perhaps it should. One rarely hears
>> the same people saying, in the same tone of voice, "I'm no good at problem
>> solving."

>To get on my usual soapbox, a good deal of this is because of the corrupt
>takeover of American ( et al??) Education by the Sports Entertainment
>Industry.

No, it is the takeover of education by those whose creed is
that education should be the same for all, and who have no
idea about what constitutes a concept, especially a
mathematical concept. The schools of education, and the
philosophy they promote, did it in. This started about 70
years ago, and the situation now is that one almost has to
start over. The use of grades and credits never was a good
procedure; attempting to get high grades is opposed to real
learning, which must be for the future.

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