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Most of what you're saying seems reasonable... but then I see a statistic like this: "Black Americans receive about 7 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded e

by dls2016 5y ago

Most of what you're saying seems reasonable... but then I see a statistic like this: "Black Americans receive about 7 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded each year across all disciplines, but they have received just 1 percent of those granted over the last decade in mathematics." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/edray-goins-black-mathematicians.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/edray-goins-black-math... And this is the current production! You don't want to see the statistics regarding the number of African American faculty members in mathematics! So what else is our current system perpetuating besides inequality? What exactly are we "weeding out" in calculus? Or college algebra? We don't let kids trust themselves intellectually in the classroom.

jiscariot 5y ago
There is a cult around intelligence we really need move beyond, given that it is predominately an inherited trait, speaking no more or less to any individuals self-worth. Proportional representation of various (tribal, ethnic, gender, religious, racial) groups would actually be the anomaly in nature, not what the parent is identifying as an issue. It is always math and but never nursing. That alone may shed a little light on our biases.
- cbozeman 5y ago
  "It is always math" because math is the language of the 21st century. People who have mastery of mathematics will be as influential as the people who had mastery of language in the 20th century. > There is a cult around intelligence we really need move beyond, given that it is predominately an inherited trait Just because it's inherited doesn't mean we need to move beyond it. It's the most important predictor of life outcome and should be screened for and nurtured from the moment we find above-average individuals, because they are rare. What we need "move beyond" is allowing people with resources to advantage to their thoroughly average children.
jimmygrapes 5y ago
There are questions that are not allowed to be asked and addressed because they are (often rightly) deemed racist. There are also questions that need to be asked that despite the racism still need to be addressed. But because there is no one size fits all, it doesn't matter. The only answers that avoid the questions are those which cannot be answered for many, many generations, and which also require racist policies to be enacted in order to be considered legitimate questions.
- dls2016 5y ago
  Sorry, I don't follow.
  - HKH2 5y ago
    HN isn't a place for every conversation, and this is one that people can't go slow enough to digest properly.
    - wrycoder 5y ago
      Let me try. I believe that are questions that pertain to race, culture, and education that are not inherently racist. There are many people who strongly disagree with that statement. So, while it’s possible to have a discussion through slow media like monthly magazine articles, it’s almost impossible to have a constructive discussion on fast social media, e.g. HN.
  - cbozeman 5y ago
    Okay, I'll say what apparently everyone else is terrified of mentioning, for some reason. Black people score lowest on IQ tests than any other population group in the world. It's been repeated the world over, dozens of times, over a minimum of 30 years, and psychometricians are dying to somehow disprove it, but have so far been unable to do so. You'll see a lot of assholes who've done absolutely zero reading on this subject post after this saying, "OMG THAT'S NOT TRUE", but if you actually go digging around in Google Scholar and sampling the research, you arrive at the same inescapable conclusion: the highest IQ individuals are Ashkenazi Jews, followed by Asians, followed by Whites, followed by Hispanics, followed by Blacks. When people read this, they're bothered by it - and rightfully so, because it's troubling - but they don't know what to do about it. No one seems to know. No one seems to know because so far the research is pretty clear on intelligence, IQ, g factor, whatever you want to call it so you can sleep at night... but here's what we know so far: 1. You're born with it or you aren't. Some people have a high g factor, some don't. 2. There's nothing you can really do to "get smarter". Whatever you've got is what you've got. Research consistently shows you can move the needle a few points, and that's about it. 3. There's far, far more variance in population groups than between them, so while Black people collectively seem to score lowest, within that population, there's no shortage of genius-level Black people. Same for every other population group. Don't ask me what to do about this; I don't know. That problem is beyond not only my capability, but my interest. I just know we have a problem and we need to look into it.
throwaway23451 5y ago
I’d say this is a problem of compounding. The odds of any kid going on to get a PhD in math (or any subject) is vanishingly small, and is impacted by outcomes at every level of education preceding grad school. Saying that math is racist because there are few black phds in the subject neglects the law of large numbers. Few secondary teachers really understand math at a deep enough level to be inspirational… If kids from disadvantaged backgrounds are not shown how beautiful and useful math can be, what motivation would we expect there to be that could carry them far enough in the subject to get a phd in it?
- dls2016 5y ago
  Yeah I'm not qualified to say precisely why things are they way they are. But I also don't understand how people can look at such a statistic and decide that mathematics teaching cannot contain any inequality based on some high-minded, Russell-esque argument. > If kids from disadvantaged backgrounds are not shown how beautiful and useful math can be, what motivation would we expect there to be that could carry them far enough in the subject to get a phd in it? Right, and the current homogenized curriculum is not great at inspiring very large swaths of the population. It is pretty good at 1) letting people not very interested in mathematics become teachers of mathematics and 2) lining textbook publisher's pockets.

jiscariot 5y ago

There is a cult around intelligence we really need move beyond, given that it is predominately an inherited trait, speaking no more or less to any individuals self-worth. Proportional representation of various (tribal, ethnic, gender, religious, racial) groups would actually be the anomaly in nature, not what the parent is identifying as an issue. It is always math and but never nursing. That alone may shed a little light on our biases.

cbozeman 5y ago
"It is always math" because math is the language of the 21st century. People who have mastery of mathematics will be as influential as the people who had mastery of language in the 20th century. > There is a cult around intelligence we really need move beyond, given that it is predominately an inherited trait Just because it's inherited doesn't mean we need to move beyond it. It's the most important predictor of life outcome and should be screened for and nurtured from the moment we find above-average individuals, because they are rare. What we need "move beyond" is allowing people with resources to advantage to their thoroughly average children.

jimmygrapes 5y ago

There are questions that are not allowed to be asked and addressed because they are (often rightly) deemed racist. There are also questions that need to be asked that despite the racism still need to be addressed. But because there is no one size fits all, it doesn't matter. The only answers that avoid the questions are those which cannot be answered for many, many generations, and which also require racist policies to be enacted in order to be considered legitimate questions.

dls2016 5y ago
Sorry, I don't follow.
- HKH2 5y ago
  HN isn't a place for every conversation, and this is one that people can't go slow enough to digest properly.
  - wrycoder 5y ago
    Let me try. I believe that are questions that pertain to race, culture, and education that are not inherently racist. There are many people who strongly disagree with that statement. So, while it’s possible to have a discussion through slow media like monthly magazine articles, it’s almost impossible to have a constructive discussion on fast social media, e.g. HN.
- cbozeman 5y ago
  Okay, I'll say what apparently everyone else is terrified of mentioning, for some reason. Black people score lowest on IQ tests than any other population group in the world. It's been repeated the world over, dozens of times, over a minimum of 30 years, and psychometricians are dying to somehow disprove it, but have so far been unable to do so. You'll see a lot of assholes who've done absolutely zero reading on this subject post after this saying, "OMG THAT'S NOT TRUE", but if you actually go digging around in Google Scholar and sampling the research, you arrive at the same inescapable conclusion: the highest IQ individuals are Ashkenazi Jews, followed by Asians, followed by Whites, followed by Hispanics, followed by Blacks. When people read this, they're bothered by it - and rightfully so, because it's troubling - but they don't know what to do about it. No one seems to know. No one seems to know because so far the research is pretty clear on intelligence, IQ, g factor, whatever you want to call it so you can sleep at night... but here's what we know so far: 1. You're born with it or you aren't. Some people have a high g factor, some don't. 2. There's nothing you can really do to "get smarter". Whatever you've got is what you've got. Research consistently shows you can move the needle a few points, and that's about it. 3. There's far, far more variance in population groups than between them, so while Black people collectively seem to score lowest, within that population, there's no shortage of genius-level Black people. Same for every other population group. Don't ask me what to do about this; I don't know. That problem is beyond not only my capability, but my interest. I just know we have a problem and we need to look into it.

throwaway23451 5y ago

I’d say this is a problem of compounding. The odds of any kid going on to get a PhD in math (or any subject) is vanishingly small, and is impacted by outcomes at every level of education preceding grad school. Saying that math is racist because there are few black phds in the subject neglects the law of large numbers. Few secondary teachers really understand math at a deep enough level to be inspirational… If kids from disadvantaged backgrounds are not shown how beautiful and useful math can be, what motivation would we expect there to be that could carry them far enough in the subject to get a phd in it?

dls2016 5y ago
Yeah I'm not qualified to say precisely why things are they way they are. But I also don't understand how people can look at such a statistic and decide that mathematics teaching cannot contain any inequality based on some high-minded, Russell-esque argument. > If kids from disadvantaged backgrounds are not shown how beautiful and useful math can be, what motivation would we expect there to be that could carry them far enough in the subject to get a phd in it? Right, and the current homogenized curriculum is not great at inspiring very large swaths of the population. It is pretty good at 1) letting people not very interested in mathematics become teachers of mathematics and 2) lining textbook publisher's pockets.