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It's odd you don't see something bad there. The reality we should hope for would ask the question of how many Americans or Floridians are food insecure, not ho

It's odd you don't see something bad there. The reality we should hope for would ask the question of how many Americans or Floridians are food insecure, not how many of this race or that. Race is a political tool and that's about it. Culture is what makes people.

derevaunseraun 4y ago
> The reality we should hope for would ask the question of how many Americans or Floridians are food insecure, not how many of this race or that. Well yes and no. No American should experience food insecurity, but also some demographics experience more food insecurity than others.
manicdee 4y ago
It’s odd that you don’t instantly recognise your objection as whitewashing. Covering up problems by referring to state-level statistics instead of looking at demographics is racist propaganda. Race is indeed a political tool, as are efforts to ignore it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- fluoridation 4y ago
  Is it possible that mathematics should be taught dispassionately, without resorting to inflammatory examples? Surely anyone can trivially come up with dozens of questions to use in a statistics problem that wouldn't raise any eyebrows. If so, the fact that someone would choose that specific question should call into question the motivation behind it.
  - derevaunseraun 4y ago
    Why does it raise eyebrows? What about this question raises eyebrows if it indicates actual socioeconomic divisions in society? Do you just wanna pretend that those differences aren't there? These examples aren't inflammatory unless you're in denial
    - fluoridation 4y ago
      The fact that you're saying it shouldn't raise eyebrows implies that you know it raises at least some eyebrows. So I ask again: why are you asking a question that you know could raise some eyebrows when you could have asked one that wouldn't have raised any? You can't ask a politically-charged question in a class that has nothing to do with politics and then act surprised when people accuse you of injecting politics where it doesn't belong.
      - derevaunseraun 4y ago
        I never said I was surprised The difference is the example question isn't political, it merely puts a data set in front of students and has them analyze it. > You can't ask a politically-charged question in a class that has nothing to do with politics The question has nothing to do with politics. It would be political if the teacher said: "now draw these conclusions, vote for these people". I know the link I provided had questions that were more in line with this, but the specific example I gave isn't asking for any conclusions, only observations
        fluoridation 4y ago
        How is a question about ethnic groups in the US now not political? Where do you think those differences in food security come from? >the specific example I gave isn't asking for any conclusions, only observations Well, here's an observation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#/media/File:PiratesVsTemp(en).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#/medi... Setting the joke aside, is there really that much difference between giving you that (perfectly true) statistic and just telling you "pirates prevent global warming"?
        upsidesinclude 4y ago
        Yeah, this is the bad faith argument in action. Of course it had to do with politics and you want to pretend otherwise. The subject is MATH. The learning should be MATH. Other learning can happen where those types of critical thinking skills are taught. That is not the purpose of a MATH class.
  - upsidesinclude 4y ago
    It is possible and necessary to divorce pure learning from some version of politics. Real mathematicians respect math
  - manicdee 4y ago
    What would raise my eyebrows is not using real world examples to help children understand mathematics. There are very few people who can handle completely abstract mathematics at any age, and it has been necessary to use examples such as counting rocks or sticks to teach basic numeracy since language was invented. This need to ground the instruction in practical examples applies especially to statistics in schools where the most relatable population for discussing populations is the human population. The history of erasing inconvenient populations by various deliberate or accidental means such as focussing on outcomes rather than causes is something that absolutely does need to be taught as part of a statistics course. When studying the physical properties of gasses we don’t ignore the spurious peaks in excitation data, we look for explanations as to why those two peaks in the hydrogen excitation experiment occurred. Binning by wider excitation ranges would have helped erase those anomalies, but the scientists chose to ask the question rather than hide the uncomfortable facts (“eliminate the outliers”). We necessarily should be asking political questions in statistics because most statistics are innately tied to human behaviour, not pure mathematics or science. Are there more people working in maths and physics or law enforcement and legislation? The best way to educate future statisticians about invisible populations is to teach them about the mistakes of the past. These mistakes include for example focussing on which current populations commit the most violent domestic crimes per capita without thinking to ask why people commit crime, and then comparing per capita crime rates to the various causative factors of crime (which might be for example wealth, access to employment, police hours per capita). Everything is politics, any time there are one or more people involved. There is no escaping this even in mathematics. To pretend otherwise is to reinforce the erasure of oppressed populations such as women and non-majority races/cultures (and note that using the word “cultures” instead of “races” doesn’t stop you being racist). Essay topic for today: is there race or gender discrimination in physics and maths employment in the USA? Why are there so few women in STEM and where do populations start to become more distinct? Is the bimodal distribution of various characteristics by sex sufficient to explain the male dominance of mathematics and physics and the rapid decline of female populations from high school through to the end of a bachelors degree? Are there factors apart from IQ that can explain the lack of women in STEM?
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  I don't recognize NewSpeak

derevaunseraun 4y ago

> The reality we should hope for would ask the question of how many Americans or Floridians are food insecure, not how many of this race or that. Well yes and no. No American should experience food insecurity, but also some demographics experience more food insecurity than others.

manicdee 4y ago

It’s odd that you don’t instantly recognise your objection as whitewashing. Covering up problems by referring to state-level statistics instead of looking at demographics is racist propaganda. Race is indeed a political tool, as are efforts to ignore it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
fluoridation 4y ago
Is it possible that mathematics should be taught dispassionately, without resorting to inflammatory examples? Surely anyone can trivially come up with dozens of questions to use in a statistics problem that wouldn't raise any eyebrows. If so, the fact that someone would choose that specific question should call into question the motivation behind it.
- derevaunseraun 4y ago
  Why does it raise eyebrows? What about this question raises eyebrows if it indicates actual socioeconomic divisions in society? Do you just wanna pretend that those differences aren't there? These examples aren't inflammatory unless you're in denial
  - fluoridation 4y ago
    The fact that you're saying it shouldn't raise eyebrows implies that you know it raises at least some eyebrows. So I ask again: why are you asking a question that you know could raise some eyebrows when you could have asked one that wouldn't have raised any? You can't ask a politically-charged question in a class that has nothing to do with politics and then act surprised when people accuse you of injecting politics where it doesn't belong.
    - derevaunseraun 4y ago
      I never said I was surprised The difference is the example question isn't political, it merely puts a data set in front of students and has them analyze it. > You can't ask a politically-charged question in a class that has nothing to do with politics The question has nothing to do with politics. It would be political if the teacher said: "now draw these conclusions, vote for these people". I know the link I provided had questions that were more in line with this, but the specific example I gave isn't asking for any conclusions, only observations
      - fluoridation 4y ago
        How is a question about ethnic groups in the US now not political? Where do you think those differences in food security come from? >the specific example I gave isn't asking for any conclusions, only observations Well, here's an observation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#/media/File:PiratesVsTemp(en).svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#/medi... Setting the joke aside, is there really that much difference between giving you that (perfectly true) statistic and just telling you "pirates prevent global warming"?
      - upsidesinclude 4y ago
        Yeah, this is the bad faith argument in action. Of course it had to do with politics and you want to pretend otherwise. The subject is MATH. The learning should be MATH. Other learning can happen where those types of critical thinking skills are taught. That is not the purpose of a MATH class.
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  It is possible and necessary to divorce pure learning from some version of politics. Real mathematicians respect math
- manicdee 4y ago
  What would raise my eyebrows is not using real world examples to help children understand mathematics. There are very few people who can handle completely abstract mathematics at any age, and it has been necessary to use examples such as counting rocks or sticks to teach basic numeracy since language was invented. This need to ground the instruction in practical examples applies especially to statistics in schools where the most relatable population for discussing populations is the human population. The history of erasing inconvenient populations by various deliberate or accidental means such as focussing on outcomes rather than causes is something that absolutely does need to be taught as part of a statistics course. When studying the physical properties of gasses we don’t ignore the spurious peaks in excitation data, we look for explanations as to why those two peaks in the hydrogen excitation experiment occurred. Binning by wider excitation ranges would have helped erase those anomalies, but the scientists chose to ask the question rather than hide the uncomfortable facts (“eliminate the outliers”). We necessarily should be asking political questions in statistics because most statistics are innately tied to human behaviour, not pure mathematics or science. Are there more people working in maths and physics or law enforcement and legislation? The best way to educate future statisticians about invisible populations is to teach them about the mistakes of the past. These mistakes include for example focussing on which current populations commit the most violent domestic crimes per capita without thinking to ask why people commit crime, and then comparing per capita crime rates to the various causative factors of crime (which might be for example wealth, access to employment, police hours per capita). Everything is politics, any time there are one or more people involved. There is no escaping this even in mathematics. To pretend otherwise is to reinforce the erasure of oppressed populations such as women and non-majority races/cultures (and note that using the word “cultures” instead of “races” doesn’t stop you being racist). Essay topic for today: is there race or gender discrimination in physics and maths employment in the USA? Why are there so few women in STEM and where do populations start to become more distinct? Is the bimodal distribution of various characteristics by sex sufficient to explain the male dominance of mathematics and physics and the rapid decline of female populations from high school through to the end of a bachelors degree? Are there factors apart from IQ that can explain the lack of women in STEM?
upsidesinclude 4y ago
I don't recognize NewSpeak