Comment by tracerbulletx
3 days ago
A nice sentiment but clearly a large % of people never do learn even basic mathematical thinking and seem very confused by it. So is there some scientific study backing up the claim that all these people could easily learn it or are we just making it up because its a nice egalitarian thesis for a math popularization book?
The same goes for language skills, by the way. In the US, 21% of adults are illiterate, and 54% of adults have literacy below sixth-grade level.[1] This is higher than in other developed countries. For example, in Germany, 10% are illiterate, and 32% have literacy below fifth-grade level.[2]
General intelligence also seems to have been trending downward since the 1970s (the reverse Flynn Effect)[3]. It has been measured in the US and Europe.
So, while it is true that the education system and other factors have an influence, the idea that "everybody is capable of X" is wrong and harmful. It's the equivalent of "nobody needs a wheelchair" or "everybody can see perfectly." People are different. A lot of nerds only hang out with other nerds, which screws up their perception of society.
[1]: https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-s... [2]: https://leo.blogs.uni-hamburg.de [3]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028962...
What a weird comment. Are you trying to argue by analogy that a decent fraction of the population are not capable of literacy? It seems self-evident that low literacy rates have nothing to do with innate ability. I see no evidence to suggest that math is any different.
The idea that 21% of US adults are "illiterate" doesn't mean they can't read, by the way:
> English literacy test results from 2014 suggest that 21% of U.S. adults ages 16 to 65 score at or below PIAAC literacy level 1, meaning they have difficulty "[completing] tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences." Included in that 21% is the 4.2% of respondents who were unable to be assessed due to language barriers, cognitive disability, or physical disability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
A lot of people aren't aware that the academic definition of "literacy" was changed around 1950 to no longer refer to "alphabetical literacy", which is still what most people think literacy means (in lay usage).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy
And this particular survey ignored people who didn't speak English but were entirely literate in their native language. Which obviously has nothing to do with the educational system or people's intelligence.
That certain countries both now and in the past have had significantly higher mathematical ability among the general population and much higher proportions going on to further study suggests that ability isn’t innate but that people don’t choose it. In the Soviet Union more time was spent teaching mathematics and a whole culture developed around mathematics being fun.
> have had significantly higher mathematical ability among the general population
This is not really true is it? There were not that many standardized testing globally to measure such claims. Many people were in poverty and did not get tested, did not go to schools, or finished schools very early (5, 9 years). Many more kids go to school these days.
> In the Soviet Union more time was spent teaching mathematics and a whole culture developed around mathematics being fun
It is just wrong. It was the same as now, except it was critical for people to show results because otherwise you had grim perspectives in the life, there was little "fun". People wanted to get into universities to get better jobs and to get better apartments, to be able to leave their parents. You could not just buy places, but a good position in some public body would guarantee you a nice place. FYI engineers could earn more in comparison to other jobs, not to mention if you could get into defense industry.
Why would ability not be innate just because some people with the ability don't use it?
Or more specifically, two of my friends teach special needs children in the 50 to 70 IQ band. Who are we going to blame for them not becoming mathematicians? The teachers, for not unlocking their hidden potential? The kids, for not trying hard enough? Claiming that the only thing holding them back is choice seems as cruel as it is wrong, to me.
Yeah, we're probably not cultivating anywhere near the potential that we could, but I personally guarantee you I am not Ramanujan or Terence Tao.
Well, I guess what I mean is that most people have some level of general intelligence that when applied correctly can generally give good results in most subjects. In general the people who do well in school do well in everything, even if they have a preference, and as such could do well in most of those subjects if they went on to further study. The evidence tends to be that in lower income countries people push towards subjects more likely to bring financial stability than those they prefer which bears this out somewhat.
There are some extreme cases of course but I’m not sure the general public needs to worry too much about those, most of us aren’t an Einstein nor do we have learning disabilities.
6 replies →
>A nice sentiment but clearly a large % of people never do learn even basic mathematical thinking and seem very confused by it
Any healthy/able individual could learn to deadlift twice their bodyweight with sufficient training, but the vast majority of people never reach this basic fitness milestone, because they don't put any time into achieving it. There's a very large gap between what people are capable of theoretically and what they achieve in practice.
[dead]
> So is there some scientific study backing up the claim that all these people could easily learn it [emphasis added]
Who said it would be easy?
It is easy to learn for some.
I do not think that Bessis's argument is entirely "made up"
We are not really taught (thought) to think, we are taught to memorize. Until one actually tries to think, you really can't tell if they're able to do it.