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July 27, 2008
Mathematics and the Intellectual
Chad Orzel has written a post at Uncertain Principles that I think everyone in the humanities, professional scholar or just someone with abnormal interests, should read and take to heart. Here's a sample.
Intellectuals and academics are just assumed to have some background knowledge of the arts, and not knowing those things can count against you. Ignorance of math and science is no obstacle, though. I have seen tenured professors of the humanities say-- in public faculty discussions, no less-- "I'm just no good at math," without a trace of shame. There is absolutely no expectation that Intellectuals know even basic math.Ignorance of math can even be a source of a perverse sort of pride . . .
Please read all of Chad's post. Also, read Janet Stemwedel's take on Chad's post at Adventures in Ethics and Science.
Recently there was a significant demonstration of innumeracy in a discussion in which I participated. I think that was a case of not thinking mathematically until the stupid was on full display. But, despite that embarrassing lapse, my own formal educational background includes a lot of math. For those who may not know my undergraduate degree is in electrical engineering. While math isn't one of my normal abnormal interests, I have always seen a beauty and grandeur in mathematics that I try to use to inform those interests.
The actual stakes in this issue are quite high. A significant number of the public decisions we face, by their very nature, must be decided based on statistical considerations. And our natural statistical intuitions are bad. Without training, we inevitably make bad choices. Even with training, we still often make bad choices but hopefully we make them on a better-informed basis. 
Posted by Duane Smith at July 27, 2008 12:24 PM | Read more on Odds and Ends |
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Comments
Nice post, Duane.
I actually really liked math in High School until I got to Trig, which was taught at my high school by my uncle, and Analytical Geometry (vectors!). I wished I had continued with Calc, but never did. Since I took CLEP tests to get out of my college requirements in math, I haven't done anything serious with it for a while.
Anyway, I think there is something really cool about numbers. I might have been a Pythagorean if I had lived in the ancient world.
Every now and then I'll sit down and read something about a mathematical cuneiform tablet or look over a chapter from E. Robson or O. Neugebauer. The ancients were pretty good with numbers.
One of the little things that lingers in my everyday life from liking math: while on a long drive, I add license plate numbers or, when everyone is aslepp, I try to figure out stuff like the square root of some weird number to several decimal points.
Posted by: Alan Lenzi at July 27, 2008 2:33 PM
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