Discussion for article #240185
We have been freaking out about Math and Science since the launch of Sputnik, but the reality is that most of us never use much more than basic algebra in our daily lives and most of the science we learn never applies either. However, being able to compose a decent report, read adequately and know our history is vital to our daily lives.
Sadly, and as a big fan of mathematics, I have to agree with Mr Oliver. Even calculus, which I found very exciting, is pretty much obsolete. We don’t have to integrate graphs symbolically anymore, we just add up millions of data points in a millisecond, and we’re done. The advantage of this new way is that, sadly, calculus was typically an approximation – calculating where a tossed football will land involves air resistance and other things; things easy to figure out iteratively, but damn hard to do with calculus.
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I have found that Algegra was useful and even necessary for my particular career which involved negotiating contracts and price analysis. So, even though advanced math is not necessary for most people, I wouldn’t say only adding, subtracting, etc. is necessary.
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“Algegra”? Is that mathematics or a country in Africa? Either way, John Oliver says I do not need to know. (Unless it is a misspelling of a word, which he said I do sort of need to know.)
While I’ve never used differential equations or imaginary numbers and such in “real” life, I used the basic arsenal of calculations including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, geometry, square roots, logarithms, etc. in my work. No, I had no exotic jobs… a business manager, and then the owner of a pet grooming shop, and prior to that some professional use in clinical psychology. And yes, I used spreadsheets heavily and very much appreciated their ability to short cut the actual calculations–but I had to understand what I wanted them to do or they’d have done me very little good. Even figuring out gas mileage for my car, storage room in a truck when moving, analyzing and projecting personal budgets, designing my kitchen or a computer room, use math skills; the more you have (up to a point) the more useful they are. Math is rightly known as the queen of studies.
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Obviously you are not preparing your own tax return…
Trigonometry is occasionally useful for arranging furniture in a room, without having to physically try every combination.
I’ve never needed more than basic arithmetic to do that.
Thing is, I can do calculus and most advanced forms of mathematics, but I don’t find them fascinating the way I do language and stories. Heck, I don’t believe I’ve even used the stuff I learned in Prob & Stats.
@Rev, for certain jobs such as yours, mathematics is vital. But for someone like, say, the average worker in a pet shop, knowing calculus is not really necessary. For the majority of people, trigonometry and geometry are probably the most they’ll ever need. Maybe some Prob & Stats.
The reality is that Math and Science do not impact the majority of our lives the way that Language and Social Science skills do. The problem is that we push Math and Science to the point that it has a detrimental effect on many other fields of study which help us more.
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Interesting that you use an example that I specifically did not mention. I have never used calculus, but referred to the less esoteric group of math skills. And none of those and other jobs and personal tasks actively required math, except a bit of Prob & Stats etc. for the psychology… it’s just that the math made them much easier to do and do well, saving a lot of error and “do-over” and costs, which was my point. Yes, one can get by. But… if one has more skills it just might be they don’t have to remain “the average worker in a pet shop”, whatever that is. And it’s not “either-or” math vs language; we aren’t one-trick ponies to be forever relegated to one slot.
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When I first read your comment, I thought it said “compose a decent meal” (I’m still a little hungry, I guess).
I regularly use geometry (and physics) when I do carpentry. And I would say that it is important to have a basic understanding of applied science and an understanding of the foundations for a healthy life style.
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Neither is knowing anything about Africa or Asia, knowing who dies at the end of any great work of literature, or or even how to properly conjugate verbs in the subjunctive.
The problem as I see it is that some people create false dichotomies that get set up to pit one area of learning against another, and treat that area as being irrelevant to modern life if it is not used in a direct, everyday sense. I call bullshit on that.
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When I was in college, I took a class with the head of the computer science department, and his class was ALL math.
Someone objected
Student: “Why were we learning that if we would not been using in real life?”
Dr. Olvera: “Have you ever seen a boxer doing push-ups on the ring during a fight?”
Student: “No”
Dr. Olvera: Well then why does the boxer does push-ups while training? Because that helps him do better on the ring!. What we are doing here are brain push-up!!!
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Science and math are like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but people who like licorice, really like licorice.
On a minute-to-minute, day-to-day schedule of personal interactions, unless you are in a science, math or biomedical field, the impacts of science and technology may not be observable and are subtle. But Science impacts your life every day when you take Rx medications, when you turn on your TV, or use you pc or smartphone. Science and math is a huge component of the environmental theater and stage in which you act out your role as a human being. And knowledge and awareness of the beauties of science and mathematics enriches us as individuals.
In my experience, being trained in the sciences, those persons trained in the sciences generally have greater knowledge of the humanities than those trained in the humanities have knowledge of science. To do science, one has to first be well-grounded in the humanities. The world of policy and politics has much to learn from the scientific method.
And keep in mind that the math and science that produces tylenol or hydrogen bombs has little to say about their eventual use for good or ill; about their values. These decisions are made by the public through the democratic process [we hope, ideally, for the good of the public] to attribute human values to the products of science. Science will ask questions, and come up with answers whether you like them or not. A world where citizens have little or no knowledge of the science and technology that makes it go, could be a very dangerous one indeed. Such ill or misinformed citizens would be largely incapable of making rational decisions regarding the value and use of scientific and technological information viz., nuclear power, advanced weaponry, electronic intrusions on personal privacy, climate change denial, antivaxxers, etc., etc. As a society we could become sundered into two subcultures: those few that control science and technology and those, the majority, almost totally dependent upon it and ignorant of it’s methods and potential impacts. We may already be there.
We need to learn about enough about math and science to be conversant in them, if nothing else, because of enlightened self-interest.
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Full disclosure, I am a physicist and so use calculus, differential equations, and complex numbers frequently. I am amused that you find calculus obsolete!
For any student interested in a career in the physical sciences or in engineering, mathematics is obviously extremely important. I realize these fields span a small percentage of the population, but a very large number of people nevertheless (a quick search showed an estimate from the National Science Foundation of 3.5 million in the US, counting those with B.S./B.A. degrees and higher and employed as a scientist or engineer).
Numerical integration is only done when analytical integration isn’t possible. Computer software can do analytical integration as well (Mathematica, Macsyma, Maple, … - just look up “Computer Algebra” in google or wikipedia for a list of dozens). Usually integration is not an end in itself, but just one of many steps employed to derive expressions from a given theory or model.
Calculus is not an approximation, rather the formulas and derivations used to solve certain problems often involve approximations, e.g., ignoring air resistance. A robust physical model of the flight of a football would include air resistance, gravity, fluid dynamics, and so forth. Solving that model requires calculus and differential equations. I certainly hope that the engineers and physicists that helped design the next jet aircraft that you use in your travels not only could use computers well to obtain numerical results, but also had the insights from understanding the calculus, differential equations, and fluid dynamics to understand the problems involved and to verify that the numerical results were correct.
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That’s exactly what I tell my kids. That they’re not learning this stuff because they need it. They’re learning it to show the world that they can learn it. That’s what our current education system is about: Not knowledge, but obedience. They don’t really care if you understand what you’re doing, as long as you show up on time wearing the right clothes and showing the proper amount of respect. Don’t do that and you’ll flunk out no matter how knowledgable you are. And as long as you can turn in work (that can be copied from others), do good on projects (that your parents can do for you), and prove on tests that you knew something on a particular day, you can graduate with honors.
As for myself, I’m a CPA, which people assume requires math. But nope. The computer does all that for me, and all I need are the add, subtract, multiply, divide stuff. And had my high school required me to take a useful class like accounting instead of useless classes like geometry, my career would have started far sooner; since I love accounting and have no use for geometry or algebra.
But they’ve got this idea that we might all be scientists, so they’re going to focus on what we need for that and give a few electives you can take if you’re foolish enough to not want to be a scientist or mathematician. That’s because teachers and faculty don’t live in the real world and base their ideas of the real world on what their teachers told them.
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Dear high school student, you’ll never need to use this complex math as an adult…as long as you’re willing to assume RIGHT NOW that you will never have a career related to any type of science- or engineering-related field.
Also, don’t bother paying attention to your statistics courses, because you’ll never need to use that as an adult either…as long as:
a) you’re willing to make the above assumption
b) you have no interest in having an informed opinion regarding any of the major political and policy debates that you will hear about in the news for your entire adult life.
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As a CPA who prepares his own tax returns and those of others, I suspect you’re doing something wrong if you require any math skills at all to do taxes. Tax software does all the calculations for us, and it’s so accurate that I don’t even bother double-checking the math beyond making sure the numbers aren’t wildly inaccurate. And even doing your return by hand shouldn’t require you to use math beyond the fifth grade level.
That’s one of the funny things about flat tax advocates, since they act like we’d greatly simplify our tax code if we changed to having one tax rate. But why? Calculating the rate is so easy with tax software that you don’t have to do anything. It’s knowing what what income and deductions you have to claim that’s hard. The rate is done for you. And if we really cared about giving kids a useful education, teaching them about taxes would be far far better.
While pursuing a library degree 25 years ago, I was able to take a few stat courses in lieu of the drudgery of studying cataloging. Almost every day since then I have used some variation on expected value, standard deviation, or regression to mean. My applications may be more philosophical than strictly mathematical, but without a couple semesters doing sums of squares I’d have much less confidence in making those decisions.
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You may not expressly need math for your career, but numerical literacy (especially statistical literacy) is helpful in being an informed person. Also, math is fascinating—people don’t feel that way be because society beats us over the head with the notion that math is boring, which is a real shame.
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