Innumeracy
M Purcell
Here are a few examples of innumeracy in action:
According to the Department of Education’s National Assessment of
Adult Literacy, U.S. adults are terrible at solving real-world math
problems, like calculating tips or comparing prices in grocery
stores. Some dismal results:
*Only 42 percent were able to pick out two items on a menu, add them,
and calculate a tip.
*Only 1 in 5 could reliably calculate mortgage interest.
*1 in 5 could not calculate weekly salary when told an hourly pay
rate.
*Only 13 percent were deemed “proficient.” Worse yet, only 1 in 10
women, 1 in 25 Hispanics and 1 in 50 African Americans made the grade.
*Americans are terrified of numbers when it counts most: 20 million
Americans pay someone to file their 1040EZ, a one-page tax form with
around 10 blanks to fill out.
Is it any wonder we are in a financial crisis?
tg
> From;
>
> http://redtape.msnbc.com/2009/12/when-i-published-gotcha-capitalism-t...
>
> Here are a few examples of innumeracy in action:
> According to the Department of Education’s National Assessment of
> Adult Literacy, U.S. adults are terrible at solving real-world math
> problems, like calculating tips or comparing prices in grocery
> stores. Some dismal results:
> *Only 42 percent were able to pick out two items on a menu, add them,
> and calculate a tip.
> *Only 1 in 5 could reliably calculate mortgage interest.
> *1 in 5 could not calculate weekly salary when told an hourly pay
> rate.
> *Only 13 percent were deemed “proficient.” Worse yet, only 1 in 10
> women, 1 in 25 Hispanics and 1 in 50 African Americans made the grade.
> *Americans are terrified of numbers when it counts most: 20 million
> Americans pay someone to file their 1040EZ, a one-page tax form with
> around 10 blanks to fill out.
>
> Is it any wonder we are in a financial crisis?
Oh please. Any of these things can be found on a calculator or the
internet. The problem isn't in not being able to do monkey-work math;
in the article he mentions that people are simply *ignorant* about
many things, for example comprehensive v collision and mutual funds
and so on.
The first reason people can't deal with these issues is that they have
poor reading/comprehension skills, and because they are not exposed to
logic and reasoning, and in particular quantitative reasoning. Of
course if you try to teach those skills you will be attacked as a
commie nazi pinko anti-american. Next thing you know we would be
teaching evolution and have national standards for evaluating
performance.
-tg
M Purcell
> On Dec 30, 8:58 am, M Purcell <sacsca...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > From;
>
> >http://redtape.msnbc.com/2009/12/when-i-published-gotcha-capitalism-t...
>
> > Here are a few examples of innumeracy in action:
> > According to the Department of Education’s National Assessment of
> > Adult Literacy, U.S. adults are terrible at solving real-world math
> > problems, like calculating tips or comparing prices in grocery
> > stores. Some dismal results:
> > *Only 42 percent were able to pick out two items on a menu, add them,
> > and calculate a tip.
> > *Only 1 in 5 could reliably calculate mortgage interest.
> > *1 in 5 could not calculate weekly salary when told an hourly pay
> > rate.
> > *Only 13 percent were deemed “proficient.” Worse yet, only 1 in 10
> > women, 1 in 25 Hispanics and 1 in 50 African Americans made the grade.
> > *Americans are terrified of numbers when it counts most: 20 million
> > Americans pay someone to file their 1040EZ, a one-page tax form with
> > around 10 blanks to fill out.
>
> > Is it any wonder we are in a financial crisis?
>
> Oh please. Any of these things can be found on a calculator or the
> internet.
Indeed, the IRS has a website.
tg
> On Dec 30, 6:21 am, tg <tgdenn...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 30, 8:58 am, M Purcell <sacsca...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>Ugga bugga.
Sam Wormley
>
> Oh please. Any of these things can be found on a calculator or the
> internet. The problem isn't in not being able to do monkey-work math;
> in the article he mentions that people are simply *ignorant* about
> many things, for example comprehensive v collision and mutual funds
> and so on.
Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future
> http://www.alternet.org/environment/141679/unscientific_america:_how_scientific_illiteracy_threatens_our_future/
"From Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our
Future by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. Excerpted by arrangement
with Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright � 2009.
"Rethinking the Problem of Scientific Illiteracy
"As Mark Twain put it, �The trouble with the world is not that people
know too little, it�s that they know so many things that just aren�t
so.� Take the army of aggrieved parents nationwide who swear vaccines
are the reason their children developed autism and who seem impossible
to convince otherwise. Scientific research has soundly refuted this
contention, but every time a new study comes out on the subject, the
parents and their supporters have a �scientific� answer that allows them
to retain their beliefs. Where do they get their �science� from? From
the Internet, celebrities, other parents, and a few non-mainstream
researchers and doctors who continue to challenge the scientific
consensus, all of which forms a self-reinforcing echo chamber of
misinformation".
tg
> On 12/30/09 8:21 AM, tg wrote:
>
>
>
> > Oh please. Any of these things can be found on a calculator or the
> > internet. The problem isn't in not being able to do monkey-work math;
> > in the article he mentions that people are simply *ignorant* about
> > many things, for example comprehensive v collision and mutual funds
> > and so on.
>
> Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future
>
>
> "From Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our
> Future by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. Excerpted by arrangement
>
> "Rethinking the Problem of Scientific Illiteracy
>
> know too little, it’s that they know so many things that just aren’t
> so.” Take the army of aggrieved parents nationwide who swear vaccines
> are the reason their children developed autism and who seem impossible
> to convince otherwise. Scientific research has soundly refuted this
> contention, but every time a new study comes out on the subject, the
> to retain their beliefs. Where do they get their “science” from? From
> the Internet, celebrities, other parents, and a few non-mainstream
> researchers and doctors who continue to challenge the scientific
> consensus, all of which forms a self-reinforcing echo chamber of
> misinformation".
And why do they think that science is about superficial answers in the
first place? This is nothing new; you can't blame it on the
internet.
snipped part:
The first reason people can't deal with these issues is that they
have
poor reading/comprehension skills, and because they are not exposed
to
logic and reasoning, and in particular quantitative reasoning. Of
course if you try to teach those skills you will be attacked as a
commie nazi pinko anti-american. Next thing you know we would be
teaching evolution and have national standards for evaluating
performance.
end snipped part
Teach people to use the internet and software to solve problems, and
you will have better scientific literacy and better numeracy. But
then you have to give up monkey-tricks.
-tg
M Purcell
> On 12/30/09 8:21 AM, tg wrote:
>
>
>
> > Oh please. Any of these things can be found on a calculator or the
> > internet. The problem isn't in not being able to do monkey-work math;
> > in the article he mentions that people are simply *ignorant* about
> > many things, for example comprehensive v collision and mutual funds
> > and so on.
>
> Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future
>
>
> "From Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our
> Future by Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. Excerpted by arrangement
>
> "Rethinking the Problem of Scientific Illiteracy
>
> know too little, it’s that they know so many things that just aren’t
> so.” Take the army of aggrieved parents nationwide who swear vaccines
> are the reason their children developed autism and who seem impossible
> to convince otherwise. Scientific research has soundly refuted this
> contention, but every time a new study comes out on the subject, the
> to retain their beliefs. Where do they get their “science” from? From
> the Internet, celebrities, other parents, and a few non-mainstream
> researchers and doctors who continue to challenge the scientific
> consensus, all of which forms a self-reinforcing echo chamber of
> misinformation".
This comment was interesting:
I teach math at a community college and many students have little
sense of numbers. In general, these same students have little sense of
English grammar, history, literature, or practically anything else. I
get students all the time who are astonished that they failed a class
that they attended religiously and for which they did some homework.
The expectation of knowing the material deeply enough to do well on a
test, and to retain the knowledge from the previous class, is so alien
that they think me unreasonable. The carry this same expectation of
not actually needing to know anything into every subject, and so can't
tell me why it is unreasonable to back project a model of automobile
emissions based on data from 1950 to 1970 into the 1700s and get a
number from that model for 1776. They are allowed calculators, but a
calculator will not help if you don't know what to do with it. They
are not really being taught to think about things and make judgements
and they think I am a little bizzare for wanting them to do so. If it
isn't easy, they don't want to do it. It isn't that teachers don't
want to teach, it is more that it is difficult to teach someone with
contempt for learning.
ML, Tucson, AZ (Sent Dec 29, 2009 1:15:16 PM)
Zerkon
> Here are a few examples of innumeracy in action: According to the
> Department of Education’s National Assessment of Adult Literacy, U.S.
> adults are terrible at solving real-world math problems, like
> calculating tips or comparing prices in grocery stores. Some dismal
> results:
> *Only 42 percent were able to pick out two items on a menu, add them,
> and calculate a tip.
> *Only 1 in 5 could reliably calculate mortgage interest. *1 in 5 could
> not calculate weekly salary when told an hourly pay rate.
> *Only 13 percent were deemed “proficient.” Worse yet, only 1 in 10
> women, 1 in 25 Hispanics and 1 in 50 African Americans made the grade.
> *Americans are terrified of numbers when it counts most: 20 million
> Americans pay someone to file their 1040EZ, a one-page tax form with
> around 10 blanks to fill out.
>
> Is it any wonder we are in a financial crisis?
Doesn't hold. By your reasoning, financial stability could not be
possible. I'm sure this is not your main point...
Math considered to be composed of 'problems' might be a significant
aspect. Math is taught as a set of math problems, the solutions are only
math solutions which means entering a world of complete abstraction and
catechism. Tolerable for some children, others not so much so. The boy is
the father of the man, as the old education saying goes.
In this study, I wonder if a person who can not calculate one specific
problem could calculate another quite well if it served some immediate
routine purpose. All seasoned waiters and waitresses, for instance, being
able to figure out the tip they should be getting. Carpenters, masons,
plumbers and bakers and a very broad 'etc' deal with math constantly as
do winos who collect and bottles.
Using the IRS is, I think, a excellent example of how many people see
most math unrelated to immediate need. It is associated with threat, an
extension of school conditioning. Taxes are abstracted by fear and threat
and rightly associated with confusion and being nearly incomprehensible.
A test was given to the IRS itself not long ago testing how they solved
their own problems. Many may remember this. The testers calling numerous
IRS help lines and received equally numerous answers for the same problem.
Nothing is 'EZ' here. Only one wrong anything placed in one blank space
can mean a world of pain.
Associating debt and interest with anything remotely considered 'real
world' is why this crisis and the others of the past have happened.
M Purcell
> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:58:45 -0800, M Purcell wrote:
> > Here are a few examples of innumeracy in action: According to the
> > Department of Education’s National Assessment of Adult Literacy, U.S.
> > adults are terrible at solving real-world math problems, like
> > calculating tips or comparing prices in grocery stores. Some dismal
> > results:
> > *Only 42 percent were able to pick out two items on a menu, add them,
> > and calculate a tip.
> > *Only 1 in 5 could reliably calculate mortgage interest. *1 in 5 could
> > not calculate weekly salary when told an hourly pay rate.
> > *Only 13 percent were deemed “proficient.” Worse yet, only 1 in 10
> > women, 1 in 25 Hispanics and 1 in 50 African Americans made the grade.
> > *Americans are terrified of numbers when it counts most: 20 million
> > Americans pay someone to file their 1040EZ, a one-page tax form with
> > around 10 blanks to fill out.
>
> > Is it any wonder we are in a financial crisis?
>
> Doesn't hold. By your reasoning, financial stability could not be
> possible. I'm sure this is not your main point...
My reasoning? Not everybody is innumerate but this demonstrates a
general tendency towards it. And I'm sure at least some of the people
who applied for mortgages were innumerate.
> Math considered to be composed of 'problems' might be a significant
> aspect. Math is taught as a set of math problems, the solutions are only
> math solutions which means entering a world of complete abstraction and
> catechism. Tolerable for some children, others not so much so. The boy is
> the father of the man, as the old education saying goes.
I'm not sure what that saying means but I believe applications should
be used as examples.
> In this study, I wonder if a person who can not calculate one specific
> problem could calculate another quite well if it served some immediate
> routine purpose. All seasoned waiters and waitresses, for instance, being
> able to figure out the tip they should be getting. Carpenters, masons,
> plumbers and bakers and a very broad 'etc' deal with math constantly as
> do winos who collect and bottles.
The usefulness of mathematics lies in the extension of a skill to any
occupation.
> Using the IRS is, I think, a excellent example of how many people see
> most math unrelated to immediate need. It is associated with threat, an
> extension of school conditioning. Taxes are abstracted by fear and threat
> and rightly associated with confusion and being nearly incomprehensible.
A very emotional and instinctive reaction.
> A test was given to the IRS itself not long ago testing how they solved
> their own problems. Many may remember this. The testers calling numerous
> IRS help lines and received equally numerous answers for the same problem.
> Nothing is 'EZ' here. Only one wrong anything placed in one blank space
> can mean a world of pain.
There are occasions when mistakes are unacceptable.
> Associating debt and interest with anything remotely considered 'real
> world' is why this crisis and the others of the past have happened.
A loan shark can get 'real world' real fast.
Uncle Al
Multi-$trillion corruption is not originated by global stupidity.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz4.htm
M Purcell
>
> > Here are a few examples of innumeracy in action:
> > According to the Department of Education’s National Assessment of
> > Adult Literacy, U.S. adults are terrible at solving real-world math
> > problems, like calculating tips or comparing prices in grocery
> > stores. Some dismal results:
> > *Only 42 percent were able to pick out two items on a menu, add them,
> > and calculate a tip.
> > *Only 1 in 5 could reliably calculate mortgage interest.
> > *1 in 5 could not calculate weekly salary when told an hourly pay
> > rate.
> > *Only 13 percent were deemed “proficient.” Worse yet, only 1 in 10
> > women, 1 in 25 Hispanics and 1 in 50 African Americans made the grade.
> > *Americans are terrified of numbers when it counts most: 20 million
> > Americans pay someone to file their 1040EZ, a one-page tax form with
> > around 10 blanks to fill out.
>
> > Is it any wonder we are in a financial crisis?
>
> Multi-$trillion corruption is not originated by global stupidity.
Isn't corruption generally stupid?
Bart Goddard
news:4B3B8739...@hate.spam.net:
>> Is it any wonder we are in a financial crisis?
>
> Multi-$trillion corruption is not originated by global stupidity.
>
But it is enabled by it. You can't fleece the flock of a
trillion dollars unless the sheep are really, really stupid.
(And given the fact that 10% of calculus students can't
show up to an exam with a pencil shows how stupid the
sheep are.)
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
Shrikeback
Why would it be? I think this is based on an
assumption that doing harm is a matter of
incapacity, an application of normative values
into an orthogonal realm.
Bret Cahill
LaRouche, the most prominent of the AGW conspiracy theorists, dropped
out of college because he was, like all the AGW conspiracy theorists,
so weak in math.
LaRouche clearly stated he saw no need for math.
Bret Cahill
M Purcell
Indeed, generally it is someone else's corruption that is stupid. I
believe corruption can harm the individual (in the long term) as well
as other people.
Bret Cahill
>
> >http://redtape.msnbc.com/2009/12/when-i-published-gotcha-capitalism-t...
>
> > Here are a few examples of innumeracy in action:
> > According to the Department of Education’s National Assessment of
> > Adult Literacy, U.S. adults are terrible at solving real-world math
> > problems, like calculating tips or comparing prices in grocery
> > stores. Some dismal results:
> > *Only 42 percent were able to pick out two items on a menu, add them,
> > and calculate a tip.
> > *Only 1 in 5 could reliably calculate mortgage interest.
> > *1 in 5 could not calculate weekly salary when told an hourly pay
> > rate.
> > *Only 13 percent were deemed “proficient.” Worse yet, only 1 in 10
> > women, 1 in 25 Hispanics and 1 in 50 African Americans made the grade.
> > *Americans are terrified of numbers when it counts most: 20 million
> > Americans pay someone to file their 1040EZ, a one-page tax form with
> > around 10 blanks to fill out.
>
> > Is it any wonder we are in a financial crisis?
>
> Multi-$trillion corruption is not originated by global stupidity.
Corruption is certainly allowed by it.
That's why Jefferson said "enlighten the people generally . . ." and
"the proper remedy . . ."
That's also why the intersection of the set of Repugliars and the set
of mathematicians / scientists is so few in number.
Bret Cahill
Uncle Al
Who gave you a $6 trillion loan interest-free last year? Corruption
is the smartest possible business decision if you have authorities'
displeasures leased. Open any B-School text. On the very first page
in big bold sans serif letters will be seen "TAKING IS BETTER THAN
MAKING."
M Purcell
Then the financial crisis was a result of the smartest possible
business decisions? Granted corruption is advantageous if a person
isn't caught, but a person's corruption is generally not intended to
be to the advantage of everybody else. And corruption has weakened our
financial institutions as well as our government to every-bodies
detriment. Is it smartest to rely on trickery rather than honesty in
science or medicine as well as business and politics?
amzoti
> Is it smartest to rely on trickery rather than honesty in
> science or medicine as well as business and politics?
I would say so as the common thread is money.
How many researchers have lied in mathematics and other branches of
science as it either kept funding up or kept investors funding bogus
research results. It is a shame that honesty, hard work, putting your
nose to the grindstone, common sense, reasoning, ability to think and
derive conclusions based on facts, et. al. is frowned upon by society.
In politics today, you can't even question a decision or are called a
fascist or against the norms of society.
The crooks want you stupid.
The politicians want you stupid.
The religions want you stupid.
Do these three items show what globalization has in store for us all?
We enable all of them by succumbing to stupidity - my sheep!
The world at large wants you to be sheep so they can herd you into
globalization through socialism.
It is sad to see what is happening all around the world.
What happened to being able to think and to be looked up for doing so?
These are strange times indeed!
Sorry for the diatribe!
M Purcell
That's okay, I did the same not too far back. Money is a very
unambigous, common and simplistic incentive; any thought of eventual
goals or effort require to achive them seem to be neglected in favor
of immediate rewards. And there are pressing global if not humane
issues as population density increases.