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Over Our Heads

therumpus.net

33 pointsgabriel13 comments

In general, people tend to view their own level of book smarts as the optimal level. In high school a fellow student was a math genius who made into the U.S. math Olympiad at age ~14. He could do fractions in his head to multiple significant figures. In my mind I would come with justifications about how I was more rounded than him, and that he was too focused on math. Meanwhile, my brother always had much more trouble with math than I did. He would criticize me for being too nerdy, too into math, and "working too hard". Of course, to me it was fun and rewarding. I was good at it, so I did not view myself as "working too hard". In turn, the jocks at school made fun of my brother for being too nerdy. He would criticize them as being "dumb jocks". Meanwhile the jocks would make fun of the special ed kids for being so dumb.

Ability varies. Some people are innately good at math, some people are not. No one wants to have a value system where they are inevitably inferior. So people develop a value system in which their natural ability level is the ideal level.

Yes, and as the article points out, this behaviour is sub-optimal. You should always be debugging yourself and figuring out how to improve. Eg. what can you learn from "jocks"? They work out a lot and are/look healthy, which leads to success with girls. Take that and internalize it. What can you learn from... and so on.

I blame the teachers. Not all of them, just two major categories.

Category #1 ``Math Illiterate Teachers'' : These teachers don't actually know any real math. They memorize a lesson out of the texbook and present it to the class. The problem is that it convinces students that math is magic: it works, but don't ask why.

Category #2 ``Underestimaters'' : These teachers are competent in their subject, but have given up on the majority of their class. These students are already convinced that math is magic and attempts to teach math in any way but rote memorization result in loosing them. Thus they give endless `examples' and `special cases' and `flowcharts' in hope that these students can memorize enough to pass the finals and go on to be art students.

I've talked to both categories of teachers. #1 is generally aware that they know nothing, but feels it is unimportant (one told me that other teachers down the road would be able to explain things so she just had to get them to do things). #2 generally feels that this is the only way possible: some students just can't grasp math.

Another part of the problem is textbooks. IMHO, they over-complicate topics by giving to much explanation. Brief answers are easier for students to grasp and make the textbook more approachable. You can break concepts into smaller concepts and give secondary more detailed explanations where necessary instead. I'm working on writing a open source math textbook on this approach (sorry for self promotion): http://christopherolah.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/math1.pdf . Feedback and help are appreciated.

I'll add a third: The storyteller.

This teacher is more interested in off topic discussions and spinning yarns than teaching or discussing the topic. Results being he (or she) does not spend enough time actually teaching and engaging the students.

Might not be so bad on fluff topics, but can be damaging when this is your 7th grade algebra teacher.

The article mentions that one of the consequences of numerical illiteracy is the formation of a technocracy. From the looks of our current culture it seems like the opposite. Government is filled with politicians not of a scientific/mathematical background but instead capable of rhetoric (or not capable at all =D).

I think the actual effect is that a government stagnates technologically because the numerically illiterate masses tend to vote for people who share their opinions, and hence there is a void of technocrats in government.

The trend seems to be changing now though, possibly because those 'smart' people (like the readers of HN) are making money, and impressing others. Blogs probably also increase the sociability of 'nerds' and they are sharing their opinions in a medium that the masses can read and appreciate.

You're assuming that elected officials are the only wielders of government power. But the technocratic work is done by two groups of professional analysts: civil-service employees who work for agencies like the Congressional Budget Office or the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, and private-sector employees who work for the lobbying and government-affairs divisions of corporate interests. On questions requiring any technical sophistication, the elected officials base their decisions on the recommendations of those technocrats.

You're right in that politicians look to advisers for recommendations. However the problem of numerical illiteracy is still there. What happens if say for the problem of climate change there are two conflicting recommendations -- one from a scientist working for a lobby group, and the other from academia. Certainly the politician isn't expected to have enough knowledge to fully compare the two different reports, but a solid understanding of fundamental mathematics, statistics, and just basic physics could result in a good or bad decision.

I remember as an exercise one of my physics professors asked us whether it would be possible to make up the energy deficit in British Columbia through wind turbines. Using back of the envelope calculations, basic physics, and some generous estimates we proved that it would be unlikely -- if a politician were able to do this it could very likely affect his decisions on whether other energy sources are needed.

Government is filled with politicians not of a scientific/mathematical background but instead capable of rhetoric (or not capable at all =D).

The word instead stuck out to me here, because I don't think these two qualities are an either/or quality.

Further, don't be so quick to demonize the rhetorician. Unfortunately the Rhetoric today is all but extinct, to the point that the word is used derogatorily, much like the word Hacker.

You want to make a difference today? Learn rhetoric. Take two weeks and research the term. Find the people who spoke directly to this issue. Your search will take you to the limits of the history of ideas.

I agree, xel02, that a rhetorician must not be solely a rhetorician. That would be like a Hacker who only chooses Hacker methods of communication and then wonder why he/she gets blackballed in the workplace and why no one listens.

Being an expert, by itself, isn't enough to entitle one to the responsibility of speaking for others. The rhetoric, lets now say the Politician, has the responsibility to make decisions for a group, and while these decisions require technocratic involvement, they have other non-technocratic elements to be considered.

I, as an engineer, was appalled to learn from a lawyer that they didn't study rhetoric in law school in our corner of Europe. And debate teams, in high-school or whenever - forget it.

That's like sending soldiers to war without a single visit to the shooting range. Never mind the common citizen.

I love math and recognize its supreme importance, but anything beyond long division is beyond me.

Some people have dyscalculia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia

Depending on your age and the severity of your condition, you may be able to overcome it with sufficient effort thanks to neuroplasticity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity

Note that I don't mean to down play your disability, I'm sure that it is a severe impairment and I don't mean to imply that it is `your fault' for not working hard enough. For what it's worth, I had similar disabilities with writing and social comprehension. I was greatly helped by the Arrowsmith School:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrowsmith_School

Felt this was relevant to the article: http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

I find the issue runs in programming as well although less important in day to day life it is certainly an advantage to know whats going on with the programs and websites the average person uses.

What I find more frustrating is when people in computer science courses basically dismiss something your explaining to them to be over there heads.

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