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On July 29 2012 22:53 Kontys wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2012 22:45 Smoot wrote:On July 29 2012 22:42 paralleluniverse wrote:Another point of view is the idea of comparative advantage from economics, which basically says that it's better for society if everyone specialized in doing what they're good at and traded for everything else. So we should make mathematicians better at mathematics, and mechanics better at fixing cars, and when a mathematician's cars brakes down, it is more efficient for him to call the service of a mechanic than for him to understand how to fix a car and do it himself. Of course, there are some basic knowledge common for most fields, for example mathematicians need to learn to write English, because that's part of being a better mathematician. Advertising executives need to learn basic math and statistics since it's part of the job, etc. But apart from the basic and necessary skills that are required to be proficient in a profession, it's socially optimal for people to specialize. Thus, to the extent that people do need to know algebra for their jobs, comparative advantage says it's better for them to learn about things that make them better at their jobs instead of algebra. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage This is true to a point. But do people aged 13-16 know what they want to do the rest of their lives? Not learning basic Algebra in high school limits their options later in life. I am of the mind that a teenager can CHOOSE to be good at anything they set their mind to. There are limiters, but I'll not go into that. Letting someone choose whether or not they want to do something hard, without realizing they are limiting their future career choices in life is a mistake in my opinion. The comparative advantage argument falls apart when you consider the achievements of hard science, for which learning mathematics is a required. The achievements of science haven't simply increased mathematicians capability of doing their stuff right, the achievements of scientists have tremendously increased the capabilities of others in completely unrelated tasks.
Not really. The comparative advantage argument says we should make scientists better at science. But being better at science doesn't involve just learning and doing science but also learning and doing mathematics.
It is true that science and mathematics has had a mutually beneficial relationship.
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This is ridiculous... People are struggling with a subject and therefore it should be removed... Aren't we only lowering everyone standards by removing it? Shouldn't we, instead, try to understand why so many people are having a hard time with logic operations?
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Never used it outside of school and I knew when I was learning it it was pointless. Majority of the world don't need or use algebra, but they can't make algebra an elective because no one would take it and we'd have less of the people who need it (idk engineers and what not.)
so they basically shovel shit down all of our throats and hope the shit sticks to a few people and they get turned out by the system.
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On July 29 2012 22:36 Smoot wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2012 22:28 paralleluniverse wrote:On July 29 2012 22:23 Smoot wrote:
Letting a teenager 13-16 decide whether or not to learn Algebra is basically letting them decide to limit their choice of career in life 5 years down the road.
They will not understand the consequences of not-learning Algebra early on until it is too late. At 18-19 they may say, you know, I wasn't BAD at Algebra, maybe I'll look into a science or engineering career.
But if they decided at 13 not to take Algebra because "it sucked", then they just cut short their future career prospects without realizing it. Not to mention the career prospects that they are forgoing are some of the highest paying career prospects out there.
I'm sure this will get glossed over in 5 minutes with posts about how math stinks and how it is completely worthless to learn for them. I think you overestimate the amount of jobs that use algebra. The articles cites a source that says that it will be 5% over the next several years. So it will be useless for 95% of students in their future careers. And then there's this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-pushes-for-more-scientists-but-the-jobs-arent-there/2012/07/07/gJQAZJpQUW_story.htmland this: http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2012/07/09/the-stem-phd-glut-makes-the-mainstream-media/#more-10493 Yeah, I really don't think I underestimate it. Accountants, Engineers, Finance, Economics, Physics, Nuclear Industry, HVAC, Electricians, Building Construction, Any cost / benefit analysis, any Science..... I think they count for more than 5% of the job market. The articles you link show that it is difficult for a new graduate to find a job in a bad economy. There are more factors regarding whether or not you get a job than your degree and the economy. The two major ones are work experience and internships. Location is also a limiting factor. Generally speaking if you have three things open for you, you can find a decent job. Location, Ability, and Willingness to Work. If you have all three of these knocked out, then you won't struggle to find a job. Location is a HUGE limiter, as well as ability and willingness to work. But that's just me talking. If someone REALLY wanted to find a job, and they cast their net nationwide, they will have some options available to them.
You can add a significant percentage of management jobs to that - many projects cannot be overseen properly by people lacking in technical skills, and mathematical skills undeniably contribute to good upper level decision making in large corporations so it is not just a lower management skill.
Also, computer science and programming jobs - if you think you program well without maths you're lying to yourself. You either picked up maths without realising it, or your programming could be improved by doing so but you don't realise it. Without maths, you can't even work out how efficient your program will be.
It's needed for logistics and the green-tech industry too.
Also, algebra should not put children off nearly as much as it does. Children in general love maths until the first time they are taught it by a teacher who dislikes maths or teaching. Maths is problem solving, and our brains are hardwired to reward us whenever we solve a problem that challenged us. Taught well, children move seemlessly from working out that if 5 +  = 6, must be 1 onwards.
There should also be a much greater emphasis on immediate application at all levels. Kids shouldn't be told "This will help with your career," as justification for learning no matter how true that is. They don't really care much about that. It doesn't even need to be applications that they would need to do outside of school, just problems that tie in with their immediate environment. "How much water fills the school swimming pool?" "How many ways can you make up 50c to get a bag of candy?" "When x major league player hit a ball at speed y and angle z last weekend, how high did it get?"
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On July 29 2012 22:55 Thenerf wrote:
I dont' think we need english classes. I have never needed to know what the parts of a sentence were. And I definitely never needed to learn about any plays and the books were pointless. I wish I could have dropped it because while I was in advance placement in every other subject I would always pick the mid tier english classes so I didn't have to do any real work.
The SATs however have a lot of that stupid and ultimately subjective material in it visa vi the whole english part. In a culture of standardizing intelligence for a mindless workforce you're going to need to know a little of everything.
I'm a physicist so I pretty much communicate in math. I also realize that everyone is different and too much knowledge is never a bad thing.
Here's the first article on physics that I found on arXiv: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.6105.pdf
Notice the word/equation ratio.
Papers in pure math also have similar word/equation ratios.
You may not realize this, but mathematicians and physicist need to know how to write.
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On July 29 2012 23:00 -_-Quails wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2012 22:36 Smoot wrote:On July 29 2012 22:28 paralleluniverse wrote:On July 29 2012 22:23 Smoot wrote:
Letting a teenager 13-16 decide whether or not to learn Algebra is basically letting them decide to limit their choice of career in life 5 years down the road.
They will not understand the consequences of not-learning Algebra early on until it is too late. At 18-19 they may say, you know, I wasn't BAD at Algebra, maybe I'll look into a science or engineering career.
But if they decided at 13 not to take Algebra because "it sucked", then they just cut short their future career prospects without realizing it. Not to mention the career prospects that they are forgoing are some of the highest paying career prospects out there.
I'm sure this will get glossed over in 5 minutes with posts about how math stinks and how it is completely worthless to learn for them. I think you overestimate the amount of jobs that use algebra. The articles cites a source that says that it will be 5% over the next several years. So it will be useless for 95% of students in their future careers. And then there's this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-pushes-for-more-scientists-but-the-jobs-arent-there/2012/07/07/gJQAZJpQUW_story.htmland this: http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2012/07/09/the-stem-phd-glut-makes-the-mainstream-media/#more-10493 Yeah, I really don't think I underestimate it. Accountants, Engineers, Finance, Economics, Physics, Nuclear Industry, HVAC, Electricians, Building Construction, Any cost / benefit analysis, any Science..... I think they count for more than 5% of the job market. The articles you link show that it is difficult for a new graduate to find a job in a bad economy. There are more factors regarding whether or not you get a job than your degree and the economy. The two major ones are work experience and internships. Location is also a limiting factor. Generally speaking if you have three things open for you, you can find a decent job. Location, Ability, and Willingness to Work. If you have all three of these knocked out, then you won't struggle to find a job. Location is a HUGE limiter, as well as ability and willingness to work. But that's just me talking. If someone REALLY wanted to find a job, and they cast their net nationwide, they will have some options available to them. You can add a significant percentage of management jobs to that - many projects cannot be overseen properly by people lacking in technical skills, and mathematical skills undeniably contribute to good upper level decision making in large corporations so it is not just a lower management skill. Also, computer science and programming jobs - if you think you program well without maths you're lying to yourself. You either picked up maths without realising it, or your programming could be improved by doing so but you don't realise it. Without maths, you can't even work out how efficient your program will be. It's needed for logistics and the green-tech industry too.
Thanks for adding those in. When I really step back to think about these things I find that the only jobs that do not require Algebra are manual labor , food service, and other "grunt" work. However, if you move one step above the line worker you enter a job that will benefit from a sound understanding of basic Algebra.
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On July 29 2012 21:36 EscPlan9 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2012 21:35 Mr Showtime wrote:On July 29 2012 15:04 zezamer wrote:
Isn't the whole purpose of math to teach rational thinking,problem solving etc ? Yes, and especially for the people who struggle the most learning it. Rational thinking and problem solving can be taught much more effectively than through math.
Then by what, debating a point? Is that what you mean?
Please tell me more about how people don't get emotionally invested in that and just start screaming rather than trying to learn something.
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I was under the impression the bulk of high-school education was teaching you how to think, not things you were going to need to know. Math teaches logical thinking.
If too many students are failing it, then the solution is not removing it, it's fixing a clear problem with their education.
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Newsflash: 99% of stuff you do in highschool is nice and dandy but you'll never end up using it in real life unless you're in a quiz show.
I don't need to know about history to get along in real life.
I don't need to know how my eyes are truely working to get along in real life.
I don't need to know why my car has enough traction to stay on the road in real life.
I don't need to know how to say "Hi, my name is Erik" in Latin (!) in real life.
I don't need to know what happens if I mix two chemicals and heat them like crazy in real life.
That's all things that will never ever come in handy in real life unless of course you want to specialize yourself in that direction and even if you do, understanding why and how it works usually is enough to work with it unless you're really aiming for something scientific.
Highschool is not meant to give you some useful things for your way to go. It's meant to be a broad education that will be sufficient if you decide to carry on in one of the many subjects and give you a chance to understand what's happening if you want to figure those things out while at the same time giving people who don't want to carry on a decent (basic) idea of what's going on.
Variety is the purpose of highschool, to make sure as much as possible is covered while admitting that it's covered on an incredible basic level.
Telling people to drop out Maths because it's not going to be usefull later on is completly counterproductive for those 2 reasons I just mentioned:
1) Nothing in highschool is good for anything on it's own. The reason math is a topic is because people seem to have problems with it. Biology is about equally useless in daily life, same goes for chemistry, history a 3rd (dead) language, politics, religion (don't know what kind of classes you have outside of germany. All those are mandatory in ger)
2) You're destroying variety while that is the only purpose highschool really has.
Just stop telling people that only geniuses can do math and stop telling kids that you'd need to be crazy to even think about doing math when you're grown up. That would be enough to make sure future generations would get a better hang on maths imo.
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math is logic, learn math for a better world! ^^
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On July 29 2012 23:04 Dfgj wrote:
I was under the impression the bulk of high-school education was teaching you how to think, not things you were going to need to know. Math teaches logical thinking.
If too many students are failing it, then the solution is not removing it, it's fixing a clear problem with their education.
I have to agree. I just finished my freshman year at a good private school in New York, and one of the major differences I noticed in the education is that the high school students in public school receive calculators for Algebra/Geometry whereas in my school we do not. It's not that we're taught better, but we don't need the calculators to do the math because most of it is concepts and understanding how to do it. It's being able to apply your skills to any situation (real life or in the classroom) and not having to stress out and use a calculator to solve a problem.
Especially in New York, the state tests (aka, the Regents Exams), revolve around knowing how to read charts (for classes like Earth Science and Chemistry) for your answers because they give you "reference tables," as well as knowing how to use your calculator to its fullest. If you know how to use a calculator and read your "reference tables," you can pass any NYS exam for high school basically. It doesn't help students learn at all, and just teaches them how to regurgitate information.
I think that the US' education system doesn't teach people how to think critically and logically, and I think that instead of removing Algebra from the educational system, we need to include classes on logic and have teachers explain how to use what the students have learned in real life scenarios.
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We suck at algebra so we should get rid of it? Good logic. This just sounds like a ploy to make us seem smarter than we actually are. Its not about numbers and equations, its about critical thinking and showing that you are able to do something even when you don't like it. As stated numerous times, in many jobs, actually algebra is useless, but it shows employers that this guy can get through something most people hate, work hard, and think critically. In college, chemistry is mandatory, but the ones who make it through with good grades display their work ethic and set of priorities.
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On July 29 2012 23:11 GodZo wrote:
math is logic, learn math for a better world! ^^
That should be the slogan for some kind of math engagement initiative: "Learn math... for a better world!"
Such an initiative would get my full support. If people want to learn math, then that's awesome. But the point being made is that not everyone wants to learn math or will use it beyond grocery bill arithmetic.
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Students can't figure out how to plug algebra problems into their calculators, thus algebra is hard.
I have taken math classes at an american high school, and everybody was constantly using their TIs to solve the most basic problems. In german high school I almost never used a calculator, problems are set up so the numbers are incredibly easy, if you know basic multiplication tables you'll be much quicker doing them by hand than using a calculator, and if the numbers get hard you know you messed up on the way.
Math is not about being able to calculate the square root of 50 to 10 decimals (unless you're doing numerics), but to figure out the solution of the quadratic equation is the square root of 50, or even better 5 times the square root of 2. It's about knowing how to get a solution, that's what you're being taught in algebra classes, and you need to be able to solve problems all your life no matter what you decide to do after school.
High school is supposed to provide everyone with a general education, so after finishing high school you still have every option available, at least that's how it is over here. And you really don't want colleges to start teaching people 9th grade math because half the students thought it was useless. In high school you learn a little about everything, so you can figure out for yourself what you enjoy the most and what you want to do after high school.
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On July 29 2012 23:12 MtlGuitarist97 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2012 23:04 Dfgj wrote:
I was under the impression the bulk of high-school education was teaching you how to think, not things you were going to need to know. Math teaches logical thinking.
If too many students are failing it, then the solution is not removing it, it's fixing a clear problem with their education. I have to agree. I just finished my freshman year at a good private school in New York, and one of the major differences I noticed in the education is that the high school students in public school receive calculators for Algebra/Geometry whereas in my school we do not. It's not that we're taught better, but we don't need the calculators to do the math because most of it is concepts and understanding how to do it. It's being able to apply your skills to any situation (real life or in the classroom) and not having to stress out and use a calculator to solve a problem. Especially in New York, the state tests (aka, the Regents Exams), revolve around knowing how to read charts (for classes like Earth Science and Chemistry) for your answers because they give you "reference tables," as well as knowing how to use your calculator to its fullest. If you know how to use a calculator and read your "reference tables," you can pass any NYS exam for high school basically. It doesn't help students learn at all, and just teaches them how to regurgitate information. I think that the US' education system doesn't teach people how to think critically and logically, and I think that instead of removing Algebra from the educational system, we need to include classes on logic and have teachers explain how to use what the students have learned in real life scenarios.
The reason why "applications" of math in high school are so contrived is because they've been thought up to use a specific piece of math.
There are virtually know real applications of mathematics that use only high school math. The real world is more complicated than that.
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On July 29 2012 22:51 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2012 22:46 Figgy wrote:
You can burn through and learn everything you learn in high school match outside advanced calculus in just 2 weeks. This line got my attention (although it's doubtful you are the only TL user to feel this way...) Do you seriously think that almost any student can learn all the math they need to graduate in just 2 weeks? (I didn't even include the optional pre-calculus and entry-level calculus you did) Maybe you can, as a naturally gifted learner of math (I doubt even that), but most kids can't through no fault of their own. I'd like to see some evidence behind such a ridiculous statement for it to be used. Show nested quote +Removing math from high school is ridiculous considering the amount of fields that require it. Isn't this oversimplifying the discussion? This isn't so black and white... the question isn't whether or not to remove math, but what form required math should take. Show nested quote +College and University are where people get to start picking and chosing, you SHOULD be required to learn the absolute basics in high school. What is the 'absolute basics'? I agree with you, but the article is simply placing the upper limit on 'absolute basics' at a different place than you.
The question, I feel, is where do we draw the line of mandatory / voluntary. The Japanese way is to have students choose between a "social" curriculum and a science curriculum at the start of high school. We in Finland chose between "long" and "short" math at the beginning of the second year. With essentially the same split as the Japanese: Short meaning a career focused not on rigorous sciences.
So, choice. But timing for offering it should not be too early. I tend to think the Japanese and Finns both choose a bit too early, but I also believe that that is personal bias of mine, since math didn't become challenging for me until the end of the 2nd year or so. That's when I made the choice of wanting to be good at this. It was around 17, after the introduction of integration. However, some of my fellow students couldn't even get through the 3(?) required most basic math courses back in the first year.
Cutting down math education before high school would be utterly retarded of course.
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On July 29 2012 23:01 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2012 22:55 Thenerf wrote:
I dont' think we need english classes. I have never needed to know what the parts of a sentence were. And I definitely never needed to learn about any plays and the books were pointless. I wish I could have dropped it because while I was in advance placement in every other subject I would always pick the mid tier english classes so I didn't have to do any real work.
The SATs however have a lot of that stupid and ultimately subjective material in it visa vi the whole english part. In a culture of standardizing intelligence for a mindless workforce you're going to need to know a little of everything.
I'm a physicist so I pretty much communicate in math. I also realize that everyone is different and too much knowledge is never a bad thing. Here's the first article on physics that I found on arXiv: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.6105.pdfNotice the word/equation ratio. Papers in pure math also have similar word/equation ratios. You may not realize this, but mathematicians and physicist need to know how to write.
First of all, that paper has an extremely high word/equation-ratio. Or well, it's pretty normal for an astrophysics paper, when I jumped ship from theoretical physics to astro the ratio went up quite a bit. Just sayin'
My point is, yes I agree with you science-majors need to know how to write in English. However, the superfluous grammar and linguistics a university English course would provide is way too much.
If you can get through a 5 year physics degree, read all the literature, write all the god damn reports you have to write, write a bachelor's and a master's project then your English should be more than sufficient.
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Social scientists have been on the offensive lately.
We had a similar article as in the OP in one of the major newspapers here about a month ago.
Today I read a debate article written by 3 university principals demanding more money for
social science research. They were upset that most government funding goes into technology
and medicine research.
As a whole I think our western society is getting a bit too complacent. We demand less and less from kids in compulsory school systems. It is not a surprise to my why questions like these are asked.
Why torture some kids with algebra when our countries are doing better than ever ?
It is a very dangerous path to take though. One that might end up in a state of idiocracy.
The problem is very large and complex. Seemingly a lot of people don't even know why the hell they should know some mathematics. If maths is something a kid struggles with it is easy for him/her to become very defensive and question the purpose of learning it.
What is scarier though is that teachers often are completely clueless as well. I never got a good answer from any of my math teachers why I should learn maths . They believed very strongly that it was very important, but didn't manage to explain why.
In this country the system has completely collapsed. If you fail mathematics in the fourth grade or whatever, you should not just be passed on to the fifth grade math course as if everything was fine. Fifteen-twenty years ago this would never happen. These days it happens all the time. The result is that high school students struggle like hell with maths because they don't have the knowledge that you are supposed to have if you have passed previous maths courses.
Some of them do just fine anyways, and then rightfully ask themselves why they were put through x years of mathematical torture from which they learned close to nothing.
We are slowly but surely creating an underclass. The sad thing is that this is because we don't require our school kids to know the stuff that they are supposed to know by the curriculum. It is as much a right to be given the education the law is supposed to guarantee as it is an obligation by politicians, teachers , parents etc. to demand and make sure that the system works as it is supposed to work.
Why should one know some mathematics then? What is a good answer?
I think you could write a very thick book about this. It is not something you just answer with a few sentences.
Therefore it is actually good to say this to the students; You should study maths because wise old men and women has decided so.
To understand news papers and news broadcasts on TV while maintaining a reasonable ability of source criticism I am of the opinion that you need to know at least high school level mathematics. This could be some kind of bottom line statement to build more detailed arguments off.
To be able do discuss more advanced topics you need more mathematics of course. One such topic is interpreting statistics. This forum is full of threads where 95% of all posters talk completely out of their ass about statistics.
For example you can go look at the monthly TLPD win rate statistics threads.
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On July 29 2012 23:19 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2012 23:12 MtlGuitarist97 wrote:On July 29 2012 23:04 Dfgj wrote:
I was under the impression the bulk of high-school education was teaching you how to think, not things you were going to need to know. Math teaches logical thinking.
If too many students are failing it, then the solution is not removing it, it's fixing a clear problem with their education. I have to agree. I just finished my freshman year at a good private school in New York, and one of the major differences I noticed in the education is that the high school students in public school receive calculators for Algebra/Geometry whereas in my school we do not. It's not that we're taught better, but we don't need the calculators to do the math because most of it is concepts and understanding how to do it. It's being able to apply your skills to any situation (real life or in the classroom) and not having to stress out and use a calculator to solve a problem. Especially in New York, the state tests (aka, the Regents Exams), revolve around knowing how to read charts (for classes like Earth Science and Chemistry) for your answers because they give you "reference tables," as well as knowing how to use your calculator to its fullest. If you know how to use a calculator and read your "reference tables," you can pass any NYS exam for high school basically. It doesn't help students learn at all, and just teaches them how to regurgitate information. I think that the US' education system doesn't teach people how to think critically and logically, and I think that instead of removing Algebra from the educational system, we need to include classes on logic and have teachers explain how to use what the students have learned in real life scenarios. The reason why "applications" of math in high school are so contrived is because they've been thought up to use a specific piece of math. There are virtually know real applications of mathematics that use only high school math. The real world is more complicated than that.
I thought about teaching math before I got into engineering. I'm still thinking I may get into teaching after I retire from engineering. But anyhow, I worked as a tutor for a couple years while still in college.
The main reason that it is hard to teach people the applications of math is that almost refuse to understand the basic rules of algebra to begin with. Most students came to me a day before a test and said HELP I need to learn how to do this stuff.
I'd ask, alright, where do you need help? Their reply was everything. I tried to explain that I couldn't teach them a semester worth of Algebra in a day.
My point is that these students can't answer real life problems without knowing the basic rules first. You can do the farmer problem... "If Farmer Joe plans to use an acre of land to plant corn, and uses a packet of 100 seeds with an 80% success growth rate. Each successful seed is expected to produce 5 ears of corn , what is his expected return if the packet of seeds cost $5. Farmer Joe sells his corn at $2.00 per dozen." and I doubt 5 people in a class of 30 would give you the right answer.
I've even tried to explain math by using DPS and Monster HP pools. Given a certain dps how long will it take for the monster to die. They looked at me like I was stupid.
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On July 29 2012 22:56 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2012 22:53 Kontys wrote:On July 29 2012 22:45 Smoot wrote:On July 29 2012 22:42 paralleluniverse wrote:Another point of view is the idea of comparative advantage from economics, which basically says that it's better for society if everyone specialized in doing what they're good at and traded for everything else. So we should make mathematicians better at mathematics, and mechanics better at fixing cars, and when a mathematician's cars brakes down, it is more efficient for him to call the service of a mechanic than for him to understand how to fix a car and do it himself. Of course, there are some basic knowledge common for most fields, for example mathematicians need to learn to write English, because that's part of being a better mathematician. Advertising executives need to learn basic math and statistics since it's part of the job, etc. But apart from the basic and necessary skills that are required to be proficient in a profession, it's socially optimal for people to specialize. Thus, to the extent that people do need to know algebra for their jobs, comparative advantage says it's better for them to learn about things that make them better at their jobs instead of algebra. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage This is true to a point. But do people aged 13-16 know what they want to do the rest of their lives? Not learning basic Algebra in high school limits their options later in life. I am of the mind that a teenager can CHOOSE to be good at anything they set their mind to. There are limiters, but I'll not go into that. Letting someone choose whether or not they want to do something hard, without realizing they are limiting their future career choices in life is a mistake in my opinion. The comparative advantage argument falls apart when you consider the achievements of hard science, for which learning mathematics is a required. The achievements of science haven't simply increased mathematicians capability of doing their stuff right, the achievements of scientists have tremendously increased the capabilities of others in completely unrelated tasks. Not really. The comparative advantage argument says we should make scientists better at science. But being better at science doesn't involve just learning and doing science but also learning and doing mathematics. It is true that science and mathematics has had a mutually beneficial relationship.
I was clumping up mathematicians and scientists vs the rest of the world. As in, investing in mathematics and science has helped us increase, say, farm productivity by a thousand fold. The farming being the unrelated task.
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EPT
