Being bad at math _is_ entirely within your control.... The societal prior that most people are innately bad at math does throw a bit of a wrench in things. Al

Being bad at math _is_ entirely within your control.... The societal prior that most people are innately bad at math does throw a bit of a wrench in things. Alice doesn't get accolades for telling Bob that his failings are his fault and fixable, even in the best of scenarios. With a strong prior that spending thousands of hours studying won't help, Bob is further disinclined from even "wasting time" entertaining conversations attempting to explain the opposite position. Nevertheless, nearly anyone who gets over that particular mental trap and finds a halfway decent mentor (or even just a particularly adept late-undergraduate tutor) is able to learn those concepts.