I'm certainly not arguing that Universities should become job training centers, nor am I arguing that Math is not one of the greatest accomplishments of the human intellect or that Math is not central to almost all of modern technology.

I'm just saying there is something different about Math. We never hear of Sociology phobia or Welding phobia or History phobia, but we all know of Math phobia. Ask anyone who teaches Math at the kind of level we are talking about.

Take Art as a counter example. Most universities require some kind of exposure to Art in their core curriculum. However, since artistic talent is something that is often inborn, we don't require students to produce good paintings or sculpture, we allow them to study the history of Art instead of doing Art. We don't do this in Math. We don't allow students to study the history of Math (indeed such courses are extremely rare at the undergraduate level). We make them DO Math. Is this the equivalent of requiring students to DO sculpture or painting or play an instrument, rather than learning about these things?

Should we require a History of Math course as the logical equivalent of Art History? Maybe we could get people to go to Math museums the same way we get people to go to Art museums and get rid of the phobia at the same time?

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