Comment by cs702 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cs702 | Hacker News Reader

I think this essay asks the wrong question, and then reaches doubtful conclusions from it.

We should not be asking whether most individuals today use higher-level math in their daily lives, because the answer we get will depend on the degree of math literacy of the people with whom those individuals must interact every day. The level of discourse is often dictated by the 'lowest common denominators' -- that is, the people with the least math literacy.

For example, freshly minted engineers who are surrounded by math-illiterate work colleagues quickly learn that they must avoid higher-level math if they want to interact successfully with others at work. Over time, the level of discourse of these engineers gradually drops toward that of the work colleagues with the least math literacy.

A type of "Gresham's Law for math literacy" is at work.[1]

The question we should be asking instead is whether society would be better off if more people had greater math training and literacy. Would our debates be more informed and higher-quality? Would our decisions be smarter? Would there be more technological innovation and wealth creation? Would society as a whole be better off if more people were trained to think creatively and critically with the rigor of higher-level mathematics?

I suspect the answer is yes.

[1] Gresham's Law -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law -- states that "bad money drives out good." In this case, unsophisticated discourse drives out high-level discourse.

Can't we look at places where that is the case today and see? I always hear about how in places like Russia, every student learns much harder math than here in the US, and they learn it better. But I don't see other countries like Russia producing better engineered products or better science than we do here. Same with China or Japan, or whoever is supposedly the best this year.

> I don't see other countries like Russia producing better engineered products

India graduates good math and CS students from IIT, why is India not an engineering excellence hub?

Because they come to the US. US STEM grad schools are full of students from China and India.

I have interviewed many, many people and am usually quite impressed with the Russians interviewed. They usually do much better than American-born people. Maybe 1 out of 6 non-Russians are decent, the Russian batting average in my experience is 1 out of 2 or even 2 out of 3.

They do make good engineers, the problem for those countries is the good engineers move to the US where they can make money.

The problem with looking at other countries is always that you can't control the other variables. Numerous economic and cultural factors affect the outcomes you're talking about, so we end up learning almost nothing about the specific factor we care about.

The good ones come to the US to get better paying jobs. I ran a team of 25 software engineers. I tried to hire the most talented programmers in a tight job market. All but one of the engineers I hired were born outside the US.

It could be because people who immigrate here are significantly more motivated than people in general.

I read somewhere that many of the most successful entrepreneurs in the US are foreign born. That doesn't necessarily mean that foreign born people are better than American born people (which would be unlikely). It probably just means that people who have tenacity to immigrate also have tenacity to do bigger things than average.

I agree, and also wonder if the concepts of more complex mathematics and how to apply them are beyond most people, at least in the way they are taught. They are designed by professors for professors, sort of like that software that nobody can use effectively because it's designed by its developer (who has deep expertise in that application) for her/himself.

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