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A few points I haven’t seen raised yet. 1) I bet a far fewer percentage of people use Shakespeare, Steinbeck, or any other literature in their jobs. Is this an

by bo1024 4y ago

A few points I haven’t seen raised yet. 1) I bet a far fewer percentage of people use Shakespeare, Steinbeck, or any other literature in their jobs. Is this an argument for eliminating literature from the curriculum? Why or why not? 2) The percentage that do use higher level math are extremely useful to society, but the infrastructure that educates that smaller percentage needs to be large and widespread and accessible to all. A system that selectively educates a small amount of kids in valuable skills probably turns into a privilege filter and decreases the amount of talent educates massively.

zmgsabst 4y ago
Regarding (2): The participation in calculus class seems to have been the best predictor for who would “get out the hood” now that it’s been 15 years since we graduated. Shutting that pipeline down because the managerial class doesn’t see the point reeks of privileged nonsense — like removing AP classes because they offend the racial sensibilities of that same managerial class. How about you stop destroying lives to express your privilege? - - - - - I also just don’t buy the premise: a lot of people use concepts from advanced math routinely, even if they don’t set up equations.
- popcube 4y ago
  statistic is important for democracy working. how can politicians display their strategy work, show some statistical analysis results.
- WillPostForFood 4y ago
  a lot of people use concepts from advanced math routinely For example?
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    My experience is biased since I work in technology, but: - the actuaries and economists I worked with used calculus, statistics, and linear algebra (even if software did the calculations) - the mechanical and electronics engineers I worked with used calculus, control theory, and signal theory (even if software did the calculations) - SDEs use type theory and category theory (and the equivalence of them), as well as implementing the math above (even if libraries did the calculations) and things such as discrete math and graph theory to reason about data structures For people I haven’t worked with, but know: - biotech workers use calculus concepts and statistics - Boeing engineers use calculus, statistics, and complicated simulations - physicists have a whole bucket of mathematics they use
    - WillPostForFood 4y ago
      "A lot of people" is going to have a mushy definition, but to me, aerospace engineers + physicists, + biotech workers (probably a small subset) + actuaries + the rest you mentioned = not many people. Like <1% of of the US population?
      - zmgsabst 4y ago
        My estimates are in the 1-5% range of US adults for those added together, but sure: That non-exhaustive list of my personal experience only covers a few percent of the adult population. How many people do you believe use any particular skill? - - - - - Fun aside: according to the BLS, around 1% of working adults are software developers. (A little over, actually.) https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/work.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/work.pdf https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
  - alasdair_ 4y ago
    The article author includes “Excel” in their “basic” math definition. That covers a whole lot of stuff past eighth grade. For example, I use multivariate regressions in Excel quite frequently to help us understand some data I’ve gathered. Yes, it’s just a few keystrokes, but if I didn’t have a basic understanding of what it were doing, it would just be magic, and I’d never be able to tell if the output was bogus or not. Knowing the basic ideas behind complex numbers helped when I was doing some computer graphics work on a game a few years ago. Having a basic intuition about what a derivative is comes up all the damn time when doing just about anything involving stuff that changes over time. I don’t use a lot of calculus, and I especially don’t calculate things by hand much, but knowing the general concepts helps a lot. Statistics I use massively and I think is super important. Every single day, I need to at least understand what a standard deviation is, how basic probability works (I like poker), bayes theorem, etc. Boolean logic and discrete math comes up quite a bit when I write code. Non-Euclidian geometry came up a lot when I was writing code related to mapping and calculating distances on a curved Earth. All that being said, I still can’t remember how to do long division :)
    - WillPostForFood 4y ago
      I don't doubt many of HN readers use some advanced math daily or weekly, but I'm skeptical that more than 1-2% of the general population does.
      - trashtester 4y ago
        I probably use math all the time. Even when writing the sentence before this, I was thinking in statistical terms. Your statement above makes a similar estimate for the upper bound for people who use math, itself a mathematical statement. People who don't learn statistics, are doomed to think in terms of anecdotes, or to trust some authority. Math is necessary to do a proper independent evaluation about a lot of questions in our world, be they political, economical or scientific. In the office, you cannot double check the work of the "experts", making it very hard to lead effectively, handing them all the power. In elections, those who don't understand statistics and science (that require math) are vulnerable to charlatans and demagogues. Economically, not knowing math means you have trouble evaluating risks and expected benefits of investments and exposures.
  - gugagore 4y ago
    A favorite example of the peril of being unfamiliar with advanced math and using concepts from advanced math: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscovery-of-calculus-in-1994-what-should-have-happened-to-that-paper https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscover...
  - second--shift 4y ago
    everytime you wad up a piece of paper and Kobe Bryant it into the rubbish bin, you're doing differential calculus in your head. The starting velocity and trajectory of the paper wad is decided upon based on the parabola's first and second derivatives. You may not know it, but you're definitely using the calculus "intuitively" - that's why the paper doesn't land right in front of you, or into the next room over, even if you miss the basket.
civilized 4y ago
> 1) I bet a far fewer percentage of people use Shakespeare, Steinbeck, or any other literature in their jobs. Is this an argument for eliminating literature from the curriculum? Why or why not? I'm sure everyone knows that Shakespeare is used in no more than a tiny sliver of jobs. To me the question is, does reading Shakespeare's plays and writing essays on them make for better humans? Or, as Caplan would probably say, is it just yet another "good worker" signal implying some combination of social class, intelligence, compliance, and conscientiousness/industriousness?
q-big 4y ago
> 1) I bet a far fewer percentage of people use Shakespeare, Steinbeck, or any other literature in their jobs. Is this an argument for eliminating literature from the curriculum? Why or why not? At least in Germany, school is for getting general education and university/tertiary education is for specializing in the area that you chose as your degree course. So, in my opinion it indeed makes sense to make this non-compulsory at the university level if you don't choose a humanities degree course where this is subject matter.
burnished 4y ago
>1) I bet a far fewer percentage of people use Shakespeare, Steinbeck, or any other literature in their jobs. Is this an argument for eliminating literature from the curriculum? Why or why not? How do you figure? I think you should prove that one before you try and pin a point to it.
taeric 4y ago
Your first point begs the question that people learn those topics from school. They are taught them, but the question is if they learned them. Seems as likely that what little people do know if those topics was mostly learned by popular culture's use of them. Such that, I don't think you would get disagreement from the people that you are writing towards.
aaplok 4y ago
From the article: > There are two counter-arguments. The first is that higher mathematics is central to a serious higher education. [snip] It is both unreasonable and unworkable to insist that all students get such training. Of course, such training should be available to all who desire it. So they argue for not removing higher level maths from the curriculum. Just not making it compulsory. They might feel the same way about Shakespeare and Steinbeck, or learning a foreign language, or pretty much any other high school subject, really.

by bo1024 4y ago

zmgsabst 4y ago

Regarding (2): The participation in calculus class seems to have been the best predictor for who would “get out the hood” now that it’s been 15 years since we graduated. Shutting that pipeline down because the managerial class doesn’t see the point reeks of privileged nonsense — like removing AP classes because they offend the racial sensibilities of that same managerial class. How about you stop destroying lives to express your privilege? - - - - - I also just don’t buy the premise: a lot of people use concepts from advanced math routinely, even if they don’t set up equations.

popcube 4y ago
statistic is important for democracy working. how can politicians display their strategy work, show some statistical analysis results.
WillPostForFood 4y ago
a lot of people use concepts from advanced math routinely For example?
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  My experience is biased since I work in technology, but: - the actuaries and economists I worked with used calculus, statistics, and linear algebra (even if software did the calculations) - the mechanical and electronics engineers I worked with used calculus, control theory, and signal theory (even if software did the calculations) - SDEs use type theory and category theory (and the equivalence of them), as well as implementing the math above (even if libraries did the calculations) and things such as discrete math and graph theory to reason about data structures For people I haven’t worked with, but know: - biotech workers use calculus concepts and statistics - Boeing engineers use calculus, statistics, and complicated simulations - physicists have a whole bucket of mathematics they use
  - WillPostForFood 4y ago
    "A lot of people" is going to have a mushy definition, but to me, aerospace engineers + physicists, + biotech workers (probably a small subset) + actuaries + the rest you mentioned = not many people. Like <1% of of the US population?
    - zmgsabst 4y ago
      My estimates are in the 1-5% range of US adults for those added together, but sure: That non-exhaustive list of my personal experience only covers a few percent of the adult population. How many people do you believe use any particular skill? - - - - - Fun aside: according to the BLS, around 1% of working adults are software developers. (A little over, actually.) https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/work.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/work.pdf https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
- alasdair_ 4y ago
  The article author includes “Excel” in their “basic” math definition. That covers a whole lot of stuff past eighth grade. For example, I use multivariate regressions in Excel quite frequently to help us understand some data I’ve gathered. Yes, it’s just a few keystrokes, but if I didn’t have a basic understanding of what it were doing, it would just be magic, and I’d never be able to tell if the output was bogus or not. Knowing the basic ideas behind complex numbers helped when I was doing some computer graphics work on a game a few years ago. Having a basic intuition about what a derivative is comes up all the damn time when doing just about anything involving stuff that changes over time. I don’t use a lot of calculus, and I especially don’t calculate things by hand much, but knowing the general concepts helps a lot. Statistics I use massively and I think is super important. Every single day, I need to at least understand what a standard deviation is, how basic probability works (I like poker), bayes theorem, etc. Boolean logic and discrete math comes up quite a bit when I write code. Non-Euclidian geometry came up a lot when I was writing code related to mapping and calculating distances on a curved Earth. All that being said, I still can’t remember how to do long division :)
  - WillPostForFood 4y ago
    I don't doubt many of HN readers use some advanced math daily or weekly, but I'm skeptical that more than 1-2% of the general population does.
    - trashtester 4y ago
      I probably use math all the time. Even when writing the sentence before this, I was thinking in statistical terms. Your statement above makes a similar estimate for the upper bound for people who use math, itself a mathematical statement. People who don't learn statistics, are doomed to think in terms of anecdotes, or to trust some authority. Math is necessary to do a proper independent evaluation about a lot of questions in our world, be they political, economical or scientific. In the office, you cannot double check the work of the "experts", making it very hard to lead effectively, handing them all the power. In elections, those who don't understand statistics and science (that require math) are vulnerable to charlatans and demagogues. Economically, not knowing math means you have trouble evaluating risks and expected benefits of investments and exposures.
- gugagore 4y ago
  A favorite example of the peril of being unfamiliar with advanced math and using concepts from advanced math: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscovery-of-calculus-in-1994-what-should-have-happened-to-that-paper https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9602/rediscover...
- second--shift 4y ago
  everytime you wad up a piece of paper and Kobe Bryant it into the rubbish bin, you're doing differential calculus in your head. The starting velocity and trajectory of the paper wad is decided upon based on the parabola's first and second derivatives. You may not know it, but you're definitely using the calculus "intuitively" - that's why the paper doesn't land right in front of you, or into the next room over, even if you miss the basket.

civilized 4y ago

> 1) I bet a far fewer percentage of people use Shakespeare, Steinbeck, or any other literature in their jobs. Is this an argument for eliminating literature from the curriculum? Why or why not? I'm sure everyone knows that Shakespeare is used in no more than a tiny sliver of jobs. To me the question is, does reading Shakespeare's plays and writing essays on them make for better humans? Or, as Caplan would probably say, is it just yet another "good worker" signal implying some combination of social class, intelligence, compliance, and conscientiousness/industriousness?

q-big 4y ago

> 1) I bet a far fewer percentage of people use Shakespeare, Steinbeck, or any other literature in their jobs. Is this an argument for eliminating literature from the curriculum? Why or why not? At least in Germany, school is for getting general education and university/tertiary education is for specializing in the area that you chose as your degree course. So, in my opinion it indeed makes sense to make this non-compulsory at the university level if you don't choose a humanities degree course where this is subject matter.

burnished 4y ago

taeric 4y ago

Your first point begs the question that people learn those topics from school. They are taught them, but the question is if they learned them. Seems as likely that what little people do know if those topics was mostly learned by popular culture's use of them. Such that, I don't think you would get disagreement from the people that you are writing towards.

aaplok 4y ago

From the article: > There are two counter-arguments. The first is that higher mathematics is central to a serious higher education. [snip] It is both unreasonable and unworkable to insist that all students get such training. Of course, such training should be available to all who desire it. So they argue for not removing higher level maths from the curriculum. Just not making it compulsory. They might feel the same way about Shakespeare and Steinbeck, or learning a foreign language, or pretty much any other high school subject, really.