Comments on: New Math http://www.saysuncle.com/2008/12/31/new-math-2/ Remember, I do this to entertain me... not you. Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:28:40 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Jim W http://www.saysuncle.com/2008/12/31/new-math-2/comment-page-1/#comment-212527 Jim W Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:32:26 +0000 http://www.saysuncle.com/?p=21003#comment-212527 More like "no math." Then again, that was the defining characteristic of the new math- it wasn't math in any meaningful sense of the word. The idea was apparently to have children that could understand advanced mathematical theories despite being unable to calculate a 15 percent tip. This is the downside of a poor science and math education. It isn't that people can't do math and science, (you can always do something poorly) it's that they have no way of telling good science from sciencey-sounding nonsense. The end result is this- well intentioned idiots reducing the signal to noise ratio of fields like social science that already have very weak scientific grounding. More like “no math.” Then again, that was the defining characteristic of the new math- it wasn’t math in any meaningful sense of the word. The idea was apparently to have children that could understand advanced mathematical theories despite being unable to calculate a 15 percent tip.

This is the downside of a poor science and math education. It isn’t that people can’t do math and science, (you can always do something poorly) it’s that they have no way of telling good science from sciencey-sounding nonsense.

The end result is this- well intentioned idiots reducing the signal to noise ratio of fields like social science that already have very weak scientific grounding.

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