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Originally Posted by kerry edwards
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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That's a reasonable argument and I am not sure that it has a global answer.
The reason that I defend calculus is precisely in-line with Kuan's original query -- to analytically understand rates one must understand the calculus (limits, derivatives, integrals, etc). I don't think one needs to be an accomplished analyst but the insight gained from learning and demonstrating the concepts is so fundamentally illuminating to every aspect of the physical sciences and engineering (and increasingly, the biological sciences) that I find it hard to conceive of a universally educated person NOT having been exposed to it. Golly, I left out mathematics.
The argument about the humanities is a good one: Why should a brilliant expert in Assyrian art be required to take the calculus? He should not, unless he wants to claim a university education. If all he wants is mastery of Assyrian art then let him have a degree from an entity that does not claim educational universality as it's accomplishment.
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