I don't understand why this point seems so important to people. Seems like a semantic point, if we're talking about math education in schools. I mean, there is

I don't understand why this point seems so important to people. Seems like a semantic point, if we're talking about math education in schools. I mean, there is theory & practice in every field, technique and discovery. A medical scientist studying the development of aberrant cells in a petry dish has a pretty different job to a pediatrician or radiologist. They generally seem to coexist happily under the "medicine" label. For first year undergraduates, they would probably need to take most of the same classes.