/sci/ - Science & Math

You jelly of our density?

10/10

Couldn't even get to the third paragraph

I hate when someone says "You don't use math in your everyday life". EVERYONE uses at least some math every single day.

Math and science are the reason these idiots can spend their entire day posting on facebook and sending thousands of texts on their phones.

I live in South Carolina, one of the worst states in the entire US. They're only allowed to teach abstinence only sex ed, and no public schools are allowed to teach evolution.

>>3159064
I always assume when people say "You don't use math in your everyday life." That they are referring to more advanced stuff like PDEs.

>>3159064
Alabama here. Pic related.

>>3159064
>no public schools are allowed to teach evolution

>>3159090
That is sooo not true and you know it
troll

>>3159090
Blacks can't understand evolution.

We have to be multicultural.

Oh, wait. YOU thought it was about religion?! Nooo, it's about making sure that all students don't learn more than the worst students. We gotta be multicultural.

>>3159113
This is actually true, black people were failing standardised tests so they said the tests were racist and they are trying to get rid of them.

The author
http://www.math.uic.edu/people/profile?id=RamG497

the point about american grad school is kind of odd considering most of the good ones are DOMINATED by east and south asians.

>>3159131
i call bullshit. i've never met anyone who has failed a standardized test.
I don't even think that's possible
7/10

>>3159070

The most advanced math I've had to use outside of school involved figuring out a savings plan with algebra.

I would rather more practical skills like first aid be taught before making calculus a standard requirement in high schools..

>>3159090
yet i was taught "global warming" in grade 10

>>3159154
A class on logic and argumentation would be nice too.

>>3159153
7/10 is the highest troll score I have ever gotten

>>3159110

Actually it is. Let me clarify what I meant by that.

They do teach about Darwin and his early life.

We learn what natural selection is, but they never expand on to how new organisms develop over time through this mechanism.

They also don't touch on homologous structures, because they don't want to piss of the parents who think everything was made perfect.

They never teach any hypothesis relating to life originating, such as abiogenesis.

The word evolution wasn't even used once in the book.

They do the bare minimum they can without the parents raising hell.

>>3159163

I can dig it.

You can cut History to make room for that. The K-12 system doesn't do History justice anyway.

>>3159180

that's kind of not okay.

>>3159153
Racist bigot detected. I guess if you don't see a mugging, that means muggings never happen.

>>3159157
"global warming" or "man made global warming"?

Huge difference there.

"Unlike literature, history, politics and music, math has little relevance to everyday life. "

I'm certain all of those people who lost their homes because they were duped into shitty loans would agree.
The recent housing/credit/financial crisis is directly related to the failure to understand mathematical and economics concepts.

I knew from word one, years ago, that anyone taking an adjustable rate loan based on a market product would be fucked 5 years from the signing date. The ability to see that coming followed directly from my ability to understand economics and interest rates.

This is one of many many anecdotes from daily life which illustrate the need for an understanding of various subjects, especially math.

>>3159392
And that is to say nothing of the reasoning and critical thinking skills that learning math promotes.

>>3159131
SO niggers are holding you back from progressing? Why not have a nigger genocide then? Purging the undesirables always greatly increases the average IQ of a country.

>>3159393
>>3159392
I do think that the way we teach math needs seriously revised though. An understanding of the concepts at work is critical. Memorizing the calculations perhaps less so.

>>3159131

You sir, are an idiot.

>>3159205
I go to school in brooklyn
20% of the population is black
no one has failed that i know. And if people did, (which is safe to assume) it's a very low percentage.

>>3159153

http://www.kpho.com/news/28067879/detail.html

>>3159397
Obviously didn't work for your government.

>>3159397
Because then who would check me out when I go to wallmart, or make my sandwiches when I go to wendys?

Lots of nerdrage ITT.

Nobody needs math in everyday life. Seriously. You will not need any math past 6th grade unless you become a mathematician, physicist, engineer etc.

You just don't need any of it. Ever. Maybe one student in an entire high school course is smart and motivated enough to study something in that direction. The rest of the class has wasted its time because they only study for tests, cheat and do everything for the grade they get and forget everything the day after the test.

It's often argued that math in school "teaches you how to think" or some inane bullshit. What the students learn is something like vocabulary. Rules. For example: No student has an understanding of what "making an integral" actually means, they just learn the steps you need to do by heart and put in different numbers. Nobody has an image in their mind when they think about vectors, they just stupidly learn it because they have to. They show no interest in doing it so they get forced to do it. When you get forced to do something it even further decreases your chances of being interested in the topic. Usually the people who are good at math are the ones who already know half of the stuff the underpaid and unmotivated teacher is trying to hammer into the children's heads.

There is no relation between the stuff taught at schools and real life. Students don't see the point, especially when everything they learn can be done with calculators and software since the 90s. You can't blame them.

A simple solution would be a 2 week math introductory course that shows you what amazing stuff you can do with math, how beautiful the logic behind is and how much money you can earn with a math career. The kids that want to learn advanced math can join the course, the rest learn how to calculate their taxes or something that actually prepares you for life.

>>3159749
While I don't entirely agree with where you differentiate what is important and what isn't, I am all for sticking stupid fucks in vocational schools while the kids who actual want to learn are given a "normal" education and the advanced kids are given a program where they can excel rather than be held back by the normal kids.

>>3159749
Basically every single math teacher needs to be Carl Sagan.

I'm ok with this.

1. People need math for their everyday life, it's just not the math that gets focused on at school. They need math for finance (using algebra and maybe basic calculus) and gobs and gobs of statistics. The former is ignored entirely and the latter is an afterthought in secondary education, so the skills people acquire in high school (geometry, trig) aren't what they have a use for in everyday life.

2. This guy is a professor of math, stats, and comp sci (three fields that are normally distinct) at a school that's trying to sound like it's U. of Chicago but isn't, and wants people to take him seriously?

>>3159749
>You will not need any math past 6th grade unless you become a mathematician, physicist, engineer etc.
The same could be said of english, science, history, etc. And if that's the case, then why keep kids in school past the 6th grade?

The American educational system is one of the best in the world, American whites dominate all but one or two of European achievement test scores. We also outscore American East-Asians.

The general population can't be held accountable for minorities with low cognitive ability. Either their genes make them stupid or their own culture enforces stupidity. Either way, it is not of the doing of the capable population and shouldn't reflect poorly upon our educational system.

>>3159749
If our society put a proper premium on having a broadly educated citizenry with good foundations in mathematics and science we'd all be substantially better off for it.

The reason people don't need to be educated is because people simply aren't sufficiently educated for us to have taken advantage of the education they never got. It's a self-perpetuating deficiency.

>>3161102
Because parents need somewhere to dump their kids while they are at work.

That's all school is good for. Everything below university-level is just a joke.

>>3161079
On your first point I know many a business owner and many a personal friend who can all attest to never having implemented anything past algebra in anything they have ever had to perform. If anything we shouldn't teach math so much as we should teach economics throughout highschool seeing as its about the only practical application for math in normal day to day life (and even then its a rarity for it to be touched upon beyond doing your finances or considering a loan).

On your second point you are trying to discredit an article by attacking the integrity of the author which is one of the lowest forms of debate.

So /sci/ humor me. When was the last time you used anything beyond algebra 1? Lets see how crucial math really is

>>3161136
Franken Fran is our God-tier scientist.

She's even slightly hipster because of how ironic she is.

No such thing as an average American. Every state is basically a little country. I am a Southern Californian.

I majored in structural engineering and outside of the engineering probability/statistics course, I have never needed most of what I learned.

Math skills are highly overrated, 99% of the entertainment industry if run by liberal arts majors. Would you rather be a movie agent who can't integrate or a Curry-Nigger engineer at Boeing? Who do you think a model wants to date.

>>3161119
You seem to be missing the forest for the trees here. What value do those high test scores you are championing actually hold? We should be focusing on the practical. Skill based training, early development in foreign language, economics, and for those that want to go further then you can get into the hard mathematics. You need to realize that the majority of what we teach our kids is purely for masturbatory purposes