Slashdot Mirror
Study Shows Good With Math Means Bad With People
Sylentmode writes "A recent study by Brookings Institution's Brown Center shows that students who are good with math are less likely to be happy, and are likely to have low confidence.
From the article "In essence, happiness is overrated" says study author Tom Loveless.
I wonder if Loveless is just a nickname, because he is so good with math."
people suck...
Well duh.
I've got masters in math, and I think I'm well adjusted, well liked, and well rounded.
die bitches.
A recent study by Brookings Institution's Brown Center shows that students who are good with math are less likely to be happy, and are likely to have low confidence.
... 9 more.
Yeah, well, I think there's 10 types of people in this world. People who are good at binary, and
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I think Tom Loveless is suffering from a variant of nominative determinism with that finding.
How many guys do you know that can recite PI to the 100th place and swoon at the thought of the Pythagorean Theorem proven geometrically are going to turn on that red hot number at the end of the bar?
Really? Didn't anyone stop to think that maybe math is overrated?
I do a bit of work with folks from the Netherlands. Great folks. Great country.
One guy turned to me and said "I wish we could be as confident as you Americans are."
Struck me dumb. This is a bright guy who I highly respect and yet his focus, despite his strengths, was on confidence.
So I kicked his ass.
(Just kidding.)
$30 Off All Plans: Use code TRIPLESAWBUCK
and finally a study to prove it. Now all we need is one more and we'll have a happy three studies!!! wait, if they do another one after that it'll be seven wonderous studies!
When all else fails, try.
I know this is just anecdotal, but maths professors and those who are doing pure maths tend to be some of the most well rounded and happy people I know. Its actually struck me before, since I never really applied myself to in depth mathematics, but I always noticed how those guys seem to be fairly relaxed about life.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
All the article says is that students who are less confident and less happy with math are more likely to do well, in relation to how they feel about it, and how it is taught. Even the article seems to be misreading what it seems the study says. Sounds to me that harder, more complete math classes lead to better math skills.
I have freaks! I did something right...
H1 = T_h * e^-re; 1 = R_e / (SPE)^c * t * f(u) + l^2 / y; |d|i s_a / g^2 * (r_e)^e; I(h, a) = v ~ e; e^x * c_e * l^2 / (e^n * t) + s^(-oci) / a^l + |s_k|i * l^2 / s!
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Math textbooks in the United States, for example, tend to have colorful photos, charts and stories to please kids, he noted. In other nations, the texts strictly have math.
You really can't be Harvard Calculus. That was a learning nightmare if there ever was one. The semester before they introduced it at my local university, they gave a talk on the "new" calculus. One old man in back was rapping his cane against the chairs screaming, "This Harvard Calculus violates 200 years of tradition!" Needless to say, there wasn't anything that anyone could say up front to dispute that. I think America would be better off mathematically if the classroom weren't turned into experimental labs with every new fad that comes along.
Dont read article, but commnet anyway...
/. either...
The causality is not that people good in math are bad with people. It is that the people lacking social skills that become as good in math as they potentially can. Rather than spending the weekend and evenings in highschool and college partying and getting laid, they study.
There are a pencentage of those good in math, that are social lions, and are still good in math despite wasting away those years on parties and sex.
Then again, they are probably not wasting away their time on
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
of being good at math if you want to put a bullet in your brain?
did it ever occur to these people that maybe they are unhappy because of all the math they due? it its boring a hell
If that were true I'd be much better at math.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
One of the things it takes to be good at math is compulsiveness to complete tasks and to pay attention to detail. Those same drives are the ones that make you unhappy in the real world, which is by its nature messy, illogical and incomplete. Seems like in most arenas, the people who succeed are the ones who are internally driven and thus never really satisfied. Isn't that why most of the people at the top are off the bell curve in one or another aspect of social behavior?
The article says that people who are confident in their math ability or enjoy math tend to not be as good at math as student's who hate it. This relates entirely to math and not the person's confidence overall. The point of the article appears to be generally that classes that teach math without trying to sugar coat it or make it more enjoyable for students produces better math students.
They asked 8th graders whether they enjoyed math and whether they feel they did well in math, and saw that those who enjoyed it more or were more confident in it scored the least well in math tests.
So what?
I used to think I was pretty good at tennis, until I got my butt kicked by someone who can play against me sitting in a chair, and then I saw that guy get his butt kicked by someone else who competed on a national level
And then I saw the light: I suck at tennis and I will have to put in a lot of time to get better, then I got kind of depressed for a while and enjoyed the game less.
QED.
I find that kind of surprising, but I guess if kid A is very proud of himself after understanding the difference between sine and cosine, and kid B still thinks he sucks at math (while still having the same level of understanding), kid B might be more likely to further his knowledge to get to his acceptable level.
Without correction for intelligence, this study merely shows that people better at math (highly colinear with intelligence -- you can't be good at math without being intelligent, but not all intelligent people are good at math) -- so obviously have fewere peers within whatever IQ range makes for a good friendship (1 sigma?).
I am an African man from very humble roots, who excelled in maths, beating folks in rich and priveledged societies. As such, I landed a scholarship to a prestigious university where I came on top of the class, amazing my professors.
I even learnt the German and French languages and even got myself a partner. The French language was from the "street" and still continue to speak it. I consider myself very good in maths and very good with people. Partly because of that I am now working with the American government in the space field.
I know many many people who are good at maths and very very successful with people. I therefore take this study to be an insult to all of us who are pretty good at the subject and successful with our neighbors.
If one reads the actual article, it's not about overall happiness/enjoyment but happiness and enjoyment when doing math. This has really little to do with the overall happiness of the society, though it could be used, along with other more general studies, for that purpose.
I think the problem lies to the "Mathphobic" (I can be a politician and make words up too!) culture. Math and Science are considered to be Hard so they are not culturally acceptable in conversation, while conversation in literature, arts, music, sports and politics are. So people who are good with math and have interest in it and spend a lot of time with it, tend have little to talk about because culture says math is hard and understandable so people will not listen to you, classify you as an outcast. Knowing you are an outcast you avoid people knowing people bring pain. With not socializing with people your general people skills decline even further.
So you get a Sports Nut and all he talks about is sports he is considered to be a very sociable person. vs a Math nut who talks about Math he is considered to be a closed person who has no connection with life.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Gee. Grigori Perelman [the Poincare Conjecture guy] seems like a real Up With People type.
I kicked the math habit, and got laid!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
First RTFA because the poster was off. The article said students that were confident about math tended to do worse at it.
I find that the more math I learn the more I understand that there is a lot out there I don't know. (pull out the socrates qoute)
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
I think that the "people persons" are those who commit themselves less to math and more to social activities that they are more comfortable with. People who apply themselves to math skills at an early age are more likely to have both skill sets later on. I think that there are a lot of people who are handicapped in a way by their lack of math skills which may have well been caused by too much social emphasis early on.
Most of the advanced concepts in Math such as algabra, trig, geometry, analytic geometry, differential and integral calculus, vectors, etc. are not taught until high school. I would like to see a study where 12th graders of all countries were compared rather than the younger crowd.
...and along with the other person in the top .5% of Math results at our high school, I agree.
We both drink way too much and are pretty depressed on and off.
I personally think it has a lot to do with thinking way too much. I find myself modelling RL - pollution, global mean temperatures, peak oil, etc - in my head, and it's all so fucking depressing.
As to getting on with others - well, I'm no Paul Erdös - married with a kid (and so is the other guy), but I definitely do communicate *slightly* off.
I don't know if it's cause or effect, but I'm not surprised those with intense, focused pursuits have problems with human interaction on average. Interacting with people is a subtle and complex skill and it takes practice to be good. "Non-specialist" people have more time to interact with a wider spectrum of people, and as a result they are better at interaction. No surprise there - intense subjects like mathematics take lots of time to master and are not very social in nature. It's all about what people devote their time and energy to. (Insert usual caveot that statistical summarizations of trends are never binding or even useful when considering individuals.)
"Happiness" is a bit hard to make quantitative, so studies will be a little hard to evaluate or reproduce, but since human beings are designed to be social I would expect that a lack of social interaction would have a negative impact on their "happiness." There are fairly good survival reasons for people to prefer being with the group, although that is less true now than throught most of human history (where being the odd loner would most likely earn one the title "Box Lunch.") Modern civilization opens up opportunities for specialization, and in doing so also introduces relative isolation into the human social framework. How this will play out is not clear, but it's not surprising that there will be changes - human social controls and group socializations depend on knowledge of individual people and personalities. They don't scale well to cities of millions of people.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
...is bliss.
I'm a Ph.D. student in maths; and I usually get pegged as a happy person by my friends (most of whom are not in maths). Personally, I like to socialize and meet new people, get out, etc. etc.; but that aside, I wanted to point out something that I've seemed to notice in a very general sense that pertains to this article. It really does seem 'ignorance is bliss'; i.e., it seems people with more analytical tendencies have a harder time finding contentment in their everyday lives. In particular monotony seems to really weigh upon more cerebral types than others less mentally inclined. Personally, I find myself always questioning and fearing getting stuck in a life of complacency. I've always moved around and have had the opportunity to have many different experiences in life; I really do fear settling down into any type of job (academic or otherwise) after my Ph.D. Everything seems to get repetitive to me after awhile; and I then need to move onto something different. So, I think that maths people might have a harder time finding lives in which they are content. I guess, if nothing else, there always sex; that never seems to get old ;).
I have known quite a few people who are excellent at math. With all of them, their modesty often stems from an inability to commit, by which i mean considering how diverse, complicated and demanding most areas of research, they tend to behave as though they are well grounded but not succeeding in the field. I bet you Andrew Wiles, the guy who has proved Fermat's Theroem, despite all the ideas regarding the matter in his head, would have given you a "what the hell do i know about math" attitude while he was delving into the proof for Fermat's theorem. But i bet he's got quite a kick in his step nowadays. Even that guy who unified the different versions of string theory at the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies seems to display confidence having done what he's done, but seeing his manner and body language as it is, i'd place a 200 million dollar bet that he was as down about his math ability till he could convince himself that he was the $hit at math (i.e. do what he did for string theory)
Res Ipsa Loquitor "The facts speak for themselves"
The summary has the article completely backwards - they merely found that the students that enjoyed math were in fact worse at it. This has nothing to do with people's social confidence, as the article summary would have you believe.
Personally I think that the focus on math is all wrong - people are trying to increase enjoyment in math by making things "relevant" or "fun", when it should place more of a focus on logic and solving puzzles. Math is inherently a lot of fun once you realize that it's not all about crunching numbers and doing sums, and more about consistent, logical systems.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
A lot of math and technology minded people suffer from Asperger's syndrome, it is part of the autism spectrum. Most people with it usually display a normal to superior intelligence, with intereests in mathematics, computers and generally "how things work" and lack social and communications skills. Whereas they are practically geniuses in their field of interest, they natuarally lack ability for social interaction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspergers
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Has anyone checked the math in Mr. Loveless's study?
[Insert pithy quote here]
Are people going to start thinking that students _must_ suffer in order to do well in math, or that their degree of suffering is a useful metric for how well they will be doing im math? Even the CNN summary notes that in any given nation students who were more confident tended to be the better students. Confidence IS important, and this study _underscores_ that. We shouldn't be making the subject roses and daffodils, but at the same time isn't it possible that students from nations who are less confident overall simply are either more modest, more realistic, or just _less likely to report that they're confident_ about their math skills? Did they normalize for possible societal tendencies towards modesty under authority? I imagine that Japan, a mentioned nation, would necessarily have lower results than the USA.
I would agree, though, that perhaps texts could be more math-focused. If you want to have helpful visuals, then use visuals that give a good representation of ideas, rather than ones that tangentially relate to mathematics. Has anyone directly studied whether students at this level prefer or "get more out of" texts with "pretty" images as opposed to "useful" ones? Yes, I realize that those are very subjective terms, but I'm willing to bet they could be made at least somewhat more objective. One thing I've always wanted to see more of in math textbooks--now we're getting into higher level stuff--would be better and more easily-utilized tools for visualizing... path integrals, shell integration... I can't remember any very good examples at the moment, but then again Linear Algebra and Vector Calc were years ago.
Yeah no kidding. The article says that students who claim to enjoy math and feel confident in math don't perform as well as the students who dislike math. Somehow the submitter tweaked that finding into, "Good with math means bad with people."
It's not the best-written article in the world so it's easy to see how it could get misinterpreted. "In essence, happiness is overrated," is a pretty easy quote to take out of context...
Anyway, the submitter's version of the story is much more interesting, so let's keep discussing that. :-)
sun rises in east.
FTFA:
"Other countries do better than the United States because they seem to expect more from students, he said. That could also explain why high performers in other nations express less confidence and enjoyment in math."
So, it could well be nothing to do with people being good at maths being unhappy, it could just be that some wealthy countries are happy in their complacency. If achievement only comes with hard work and stress, then high achievers in maths (or any field for that matter) may rate as "less happy".
The only irony here is, despite pointing out the uselessness of the study, and then the deceptiveness of the Slashdot title, I have still posted, thereby contributing to the entire system anyway.
Luckily I suck at maths, otherwise this would really upset me.
What this study found is that students from countries with higher average math scores have lower average enjoyment of and confidence in math than those from countries with lower scores. This does not actually imply that people who are more proficient in math enjoy it less than those who do not, in general, much less that they are less happy overall. What it does suggest is that educational systems that produce students who are more capable may be less enjoyable or result in less confidence, which actually makes a good deal of sense considering how math is taught in many countries that tend to perform well in these international comparisons.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
This "study" is so ridiculous, that I'm even tired to bring you multiple reasons and example to prove it wrong.
Instead, I leave it up to you, to do the math and come up with the conclusions.
There's lots of timewasters for social-skill deprived undergrads - D&D, WoW, etc.
The slashdot headline "Study Shows Good With Math Means Bad With People" is misleading. The blurb is accurate. The article makes no reference at all to being "good with people". What it reports is that students who are happy or confident about math are likely to score lower in it (paradoxically).
The purported reason is that methods of teaching mathematics that emphasise student enjoyment of the subject, or confidence with it, is less effective than more unpleasant teaching methods.
Ben
Bad with people in general, perhaps (even if the article did state that, which it did not), but probably very good with other mathematicians.
I have a lot of interest (to the extent of doing original research) in pure math, though my primary field is computer science. By far, the most interesting people I've ever met, and the ones I've got along with most, were at mathematics conferences. I would recommend attending conferences to anyone who is interested in math, to meet other mathematicians if for no other reason.
The talks can be very interesting, too. The best one I've attended was on a collection of beautiful combinatorial proofs of various identities on Stirling numbers of the second kind. The experience was like listening to a virtuoso musician in concert or watching a grandmaster playing chess, and I imagine anyone with enough interest in math to understand the talks will find them fascinating.
Don't confuse math with arithmetic.
Arithmetic is numbers, math is ideas.
I have lots of ideas, but they never add up to anything.
Rocket Scientist + Brain Surgeon = Rocket Surgeon! (Let's get this O.R. in orbit!)
But it seems that making poor headlines is endemic. Even the article gets it wrong.
Compare the headline: Confident students do worse in math
To what you find in the article directly contradicts the headline:
It should have been: Students Who Enjoy Math Do Worse.
Of course, since almost all scientific disciplines can be viewed as math to some degree or another, the maxim that you can take away from this is probably: "If you enjoy what you're doing, you're quite possibly incompetant". Or perhaps: "Employ Masochists"
Correlation does not equate causation.
How many times do I have to say this? Slashdot keeps making this mistake. Just because two things happen at the same time doesn't mean that one causes the other.
If they're happy and confident, then they are content.
Let's look in the dictionary...
Main Entry: 2content
Function: transitive verb
1 : to appease the desires of
2 : to limit (oneself) in requirements, desires, or actions
They're content, so they're not pushing themselves.
The ones that are unhappy about their math skills are still striving to improve them.
You can't take the sky from me...
This doesn't add up! I hate to go off on a tangent, but I think I could draw some interesting parallels. Things will come full circle! /No wonder we suck with people.
Finally, I know why nobody likes me!
This sig will self destruct in 5 seconds.
Good with Slashdot Titles Means Bad With Reading Comprehension
...for grammar and spelling?
I have freaks! I did something right...
I graduated top of my highschool class in math, I took BC Calculus, and I graduated with such high honours in math, that I'm exempt from all of my College Math Level Requirements, but I take them anyway. Not only this, but I'm the happiest man in town. I see math as a gateway to understanding the world, and I've been using what I learn by using math to help people understand things in life, it has all together made me everybody's best friend, and I'm pretty darn happy. Without math, there is no life. Without life, there is no happiness. A = B B = C, I think anybody who's happy will know what I'm trying to get at...
I'm currently going into my senior year doing a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics. I also hate myself and I want to die. No woman in their right mind would want to have anything to do with me, people in general think I'm strange and try to avoid me, and on some very basic level I simply have no social skills whatsoever, and no friends. It used to be that I could take some solace in my work, but it's becoming increasingly clear that I just can't go on living like this, and I really don't know what I'm going to do after I've finished school.
Anyhoo, I've noticed that the majority of people in my math classes are actually well adjusted people with decent social skills. CS tends to have all the really weird people, although they seem to at least have active social lives with one another. Maybe I'm just the exception to the rule.
Straight from the horses mouth: ;) )
"Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so." - John Stuart Mill
(Slasdot's fortune's take on the article
Shh.
Children (especially girls) who show aptitude at math are treated as if they are social misfits, and their social missteps are toerated more than in "normal" children. Kids who are good at maath are frequently "taught" via positive reinforcement to be social misfits by society.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Study shows... ... consumption of daily moderate amounts of butter is not the cause of arterial plagues ... 90% of all male breast cancer patients suffer from depression ... asian children grow fastest between ages 5 and 8 ... 99.94% of all studies serve an agenda and are tweaked in the outcome. ...yawn. spare us your "studies". I'm comfortable both with math and with people.
Being happy and confident about doing mathematics does not imply compentency in mathematics. In fact, they have a reverse correlation (not to being confused with causality).
There is not a sentiment of "being good at math makes you exhibit anti-social behavior", or anything of the type in the article.
Kirby
Go to hell you ignoramus jerk!!! I hate you I hate you I hate you!
Just because you can't do math, you f***in business major party whore!!!
No, he is probably a descendent of the great 19th century inventor Dr. Miguelito Loveless...
Stephen R. Schaffter schaffter@schaffter.org http://www.schaffter.org
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
..."correlation does not imply causation."
Or, straight from TFA: "Correlations do not prove causality." (p.14)
Imagine coding as sloppy as therse headlines.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The headline states a common stereotype/perception of "math people," but it does not summarize the article's message. There is absolutely no mention of social skills, general confidence, or general happiness in the article.
Remember that the study points to confidence in mathematical abilities, not general confidence in life. It's possible that confidence in mathematical abilities is linked to general confidence in life, but that is not what the point of the study is.
What you should know about the "Brookings Institution Brown Center" ON EDUCATION POLICY (something the article left out)...
... ... and it's funded by people like Haim Saban, the media mogul:
Brookings Institution
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The Brookings Institution is a think tank, based in Washington, D.C., in the United States.
Brookings is devoted to public service through research and education in the social sciences, particularly in economics, government, and foreign policy".[1] Its stated principal purpose is "to aid in the development of sound public policies and to promote public understanding of issues of national importance."
The organization is currently headed by Strobe Talbott, a former Clinton administration appointee in the U.S. State Department
Haim Saban
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Haim Saban (1944 - ), a television and media mogul, is owner of Saban Media Group and is the former co-owner of Fox Family Worldwide. With an estimated current net worth of around $2.8 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 98-richest person in America.
1. I took the liberty to remove one little fact from the first two lines of the WP article I pasted into here, just nobody can say I am
bashing a powerful minority with a vicious lobby, the minority I do not mind but the lobby and its clout I absolutely despise.
2. I just googled for it and glanced over the two WP articles. There is probably tons of dirt on the net you can dig up on these people.
Example
Assume: If I read Slashdot, I am male.
Contrapositive: If I am not male, I do not read Slashdot. This is true.
Converse: If I am male, I read Slashdot. This is false.
Simon's Rock College
Essentially this says nations that have tougher math curriculum, have students that are better at math and are less confident in math skills. They feel less confident in match skills because they are facing tougher course.
Unlike the USA where johnny gets a nice shiny star for 1+1 = 3, full of confidence, but little skill.
The question is whether the job of math eduction is happy students or math skills.
I don't think the guy who posted this read the article very well. I think they actually mean that the students who are most confident in their math skills tend to score the lowest on math aptitude tests. That isn't really news at all, as ignorance is bliss. The headline on Slashdot completely misses the actual point of the article which has nothing to do with social skills. Maybe the submitter could actually try reading the article more carefully. Of course, the entire article is phrased in such ambiguous language that it's difficult to discern what is meant by "confident." It has nothing to do with social skills.
SRSLY.
I am generally cranky, unhappy and not easy to please . . . but I suck at math. Oh wait . . . where's my Prozac . . . okay, now I fit in.
"You were expecting something witty here ?"
Math and Science are considered to be Hard so they are not culturally acceptable in conversation, while conversation in literature, arts, music, sports and politics are.
Todd McFarlane once attributed his succes in business to his love of baseball: His interest in baseball statistics fueled his understanding of math; his ability to do quick math in his head lead him to sign a good deal before the other guy noticed where the money would be going.
Personally, I wish I could opt out of sports news, but he found a way to profit from it, intellectually as well as financially.
You can't take the sky from me...
"i stand on the edge of destruction" -shai hulud
Converse: If I am male, I read Slashdot. This is does not have to be true. it can be false, but it is not always false.
I really wish I had mod points right now. The summary and (to a lesser extent) article are the most misleading I've seen in quite a while. Oh well, maybe it'll be improved for the dupe.
reading TFA is overrated.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
... did it say anything about how happy dictionary geeks are?
colorful pictures and graphs in reports - and no math, of course.
"I shall take the heart," returned the Tin Woodman; "for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world."
but what would you do if the cash till broke?
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Let's see them resist me when I equip my silver tunic with a +10 charisma!
This information shouldn't be news to anyone, nor should they think these results are only valid for math. Any occupation or interest that is, by its nature, solitary, should automatically translate into less people skills. The arts (except, perhaps, for theater which is collaborative) have also been known to create artists who are great at art but horrible with people (or just horrible people). So have sciences that are solitary (physics comes to mind). Einstein wasn't exactly a "people person."
Maybe we should go back to spending money for frog sex studies, at least they reveal things we didn't know...
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
Slashdot's done it once again - it's patently stupid to say that "good with math means bad with people". This is not what the study says at all. It establishes a relationship between enjoyment of math and math skills. It also concludes that the more you were taught math as a fun game the less likely you are to be good at it. It mentions nothing at all about social skills in relationship to math.
I'm fortunate enough to be fairly attractive to the opposite sex. I can hardly take any credit for that, I guess I was lucky in the genetic lottery. I'm also very much at ease with women. I'm in my late 30s now - and since the age of 15 I've pretty much have never had to sleep alone unless I've wanted to, and many times I've pretty much had to knock back offers from attractive girls with a stick. I'm not a model or anything, and I can hardly call myself irresistible, but I've never really known what it's like to abstain for any length of time. Yeah, I'm also reading Slashdot - so what? I'm a geek at heart.
So why am I saying this? Because at times I've tried to bring up the fact that I love mathematics with some of the women I've known. I've learnt that that is the WRONG thing to do. I've found the hard way that I must keep my love for mathematics private. Whenever I'd talk about mathematics I've had eyes glaze over, and quickly had to hear that people had something urgent to take care of.
I consider myself to be a relatively happy individual, but I've learnt the hard way that I've had to keep my social life and mathematics separate. The fact that this study links maths ability with unhappiness is probably more a function of social attitudes to mathematics than a propensity to be unhappy. How can you be happy if you're rejected by society for your abilities, and have no other means to be appealing socially?
The more intelligent you are, the more you notice the real value of the people around you.
... of one of my calculus professors from college. The guy was so socially awkward that if a student went up and asked him a question, he'd get really nervous, back away from them, and - if he could - pack up and leave the room. He NEVER failed a single student, because he didn't want to have to see them again. He sure was good at math, though.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
This paper does not say that being good at math makes you unhappy or bad with people. What it says is that trying to make kids happy about math results in students who aren't that good at math.
I guess the author of this post is also bad at reading. What's humorous is that none of the comment posters appear to have actually read the article either.
aka Matthew at SlashNOT/!
I SUCK at math horribly. So that must mean I'm REALLY good with people. ;P Actually, the sad part is that I while I suck at math, it's not because I didn't get it. It's because I have a lot of trouble finding my mistakes. I remember in college algebra that I would work out a problem and double, triple, quadruple, quintuple check it and not see a problem at all. But the answer would be wrong. Then I'd show it to the prof or a teaching assistant and BAMMO! they'd show me where I'd written a - sign instead of a +, or a 10 instead of a 100. Those were the errors that always got me and I was incapable of seeing them no matter how hard I tried. I remember actually forcing myself to write out every step by hand on paper and then proof reading it for accuracy before even trying to work it out and I'd still get it wrong every time.
Today, I have a job in IT that has me doing scripting and coding (which share some similarities to math, although not as much as most non-techs assume) and my problem still manifests itself. But the major difference is that the compilers and script processors actually TELL you that you made a mistake and they give you some notion of where it is and in some cases what it might be. So that makes it easy for me to check my own work, since I get a little assistance. Understanding the formulas/algorithms isn't the hard part. It's catching the mistakes.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
count me in :-)
Perl Programmer for hire
And I'm only wrong 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 10582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706 79821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081 28481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381 96442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190 91456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412 73724587006606315588174881520920962829254% percent of the time damit!
that isn't a circular reference is it?
..by myself, of sylentmode's headline and summary, shows that his reading skills and comprehension are below average relative to his peer group. Perhaps he enjoys himself too much to be good at it.
Math is tough!
There seems to be a slow, inexorable trend in Slashdot headlines to misrepresent their content. Whether that's because the editors prefer a 'shocking' headline to an accurate one, or because no-one Rs TFA anymore, I guess we'll never know. Moreover, the survey compares countries, not students. The actual article (ZOMG!) seems to say that in countries where the average student enjoys their maths lessons and thinks they have a good handle on the content, their actual proficiency is sub-par. Presumably because their lessons are focused on entertainment and not content. Also, note that the article refers to grade 4 and grade 8. In most countries, maths education at this level still primarily consists of a lot of rote learning, in several disparate areas. I was a relatively competent maths-geek at school, and even for me maths only really stopped being a chore at about 10th grade.
On the other hand, half are smarter than that. It may be a low bar, but you'll feel a lot better about society knowing that half of them are above it.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Posting does not imply reading comprehension.
Snap!
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
Habeus Corpus done bit the dust. America? Never heard of it. Don't misunderestimate it. We'll just get ridda dem damn nasty math guys. Mission Accomplished.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Logic is mostly processed in the left hyppocampus. This part of the brain also processes depression. The two are neurologically linked.
The right hyppocampus processes joy, and also images/visualization.
Usually, both hyppocampi cannot be active at the same time. When one is dominant, the other is dormant.
Of course there are no absolutes, especially in the brain. No single brain organ is responsible for something like logic or happiness, and it is possible to train your brain to switch between them quickly and have them both active simultaneously (to some degree).
However, in general, people with well-developed left hyppocampi will be very good at logic and depression. The traditional personality stereotype is simply the path of least resistance for someone with this neurological emphasis. Changes to that are chemical in nature, and as such will require energy, time, and repetition.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional psychologist or neurologist..I just read all this stuff online.
Or, put more formally, mathematical skills and people skills are inversely proportional!
Err, wait... What I meant to say is, uh, they're proportional. I think. I dunno, I'm not good at math.
I'm off to hang out with my large group of friends.
Here in my parents' basement.
Really.
Thanks for playing though. What kind of day would it be without some quality bullshit from one of those people that just get pissy about every piece of social research that doesn't perfectly match their worldview?
Snap!
Yo mama!
You can't take the sky from me...
Man, you really have to bend over backwards to misread the article as badly as the poster did.
...whip kids there and remove chunks of skin from students who don't do well? This is the same place with the death penalty for sneezing in public and stuff like that, right? I'd call that a practical inducement to do well on your math homework whether you liked it or not or were happy or not.
The conclusions being drawn from this article in the summary are completely wrong. There are two important findings in this study:
1. Countries that have a higher average student confidence in math tend to have lower average student math scores (unexpected).
2. Within a single country, students with higher confidence in math tend to have higher math scores (as expected).
The only useful conclusion that can be drawn from these is that the countries with education systems that focus on confidence do not end up educating their students as well, or that in countries with higher math scores students feel that they are not at the top of their class. It says nothing about individual students, and it doesn't say that students who are good at math have lower confidence, and it certaintly doesn't say that students who are good at math are bad with people.
-- Colin Cross
may be it due to fiscal awareness
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From the article: In essence, happiness is overrated, says study author Tom Loveless.
You have an author named Loveless discussing how happiness is overrated.
Am I the only one chuckling at that?
maybe it's because they are more in touch with there inner checkbook.
Overrated by a factor of 2.7 is just underrated by a factor of 0.370 bar!
I don't know why I bother to mention it anymore, but would you people please stop using "FUD" as a synonym of "bullshit"? Just because you disagree with the assertion doesn't mean that the study's authors are purposefully and maliciously spreading "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" about math geeks.
It seems there is something in this study. Grygory Perelman who is (or was) one of the most brilliant living matematitian seems not a happy person...
And this, dear slashdotters, is why I will never become a subscriber. I'm not asking for the editors to analyze the article in detail, I'm not insisting on absolutely zero typoes, I just want them to actually skim the article long enough to realize when the submitter's summary has absolutely nothing to do with the article.
...I make $300,000 a year, this is my new Porsche ($150,000), this is my house ($900,000)....
Whats so bad about being good in math?
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
When someone describes their skills with "I'm a people person", I automatically deduce their only skill is bullshiting.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I would say that happiness, far from being overrated, is the most important thing in life.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
"My normal approach is useless here"
http://www.xkcd.com/c55.html
But I guess that guy was wrong, too. Look, the idea has been around for a long time that knowing more can actually make you unhappy. There are a lot of silly little ideas that make us feel better about our existence, but that a smart person just can't bring themselves to believe. "Everything happens for a reason," for example. Your statement that correlation is not causation, while technically true, doesn't refute the basic truths we can see around us. You may not be able to PROVE it mathematically, which is what you're saying, but that doesn't mean much outside the field of mathematics.
This is an old, old idea. No, you can't prove it mathematically, because you can't PROVE anything in the real world mathematically. There is a correlation between smoking tobacco and lung cancer--the link is not PROVEN, but to believe otherwise isn't considered all that reasonable. But the idea that wisdom or intelligence undermines happiness has been around forever. It doesn't stop being true, though it shouldn't be couched in mathematical terms.
I think the issue might be simpler than it's being made in the article. Here's my take:
Math is taught badly. People don't "learn math" due to teaching. They mostly succeed due to self-learning and otherwise fail and get out as gracefully as they can.
So who learns it on their own? People who don't require a lot of interaction. Loners. People who don't need social interaction to succeed.
And when then when you measure whether mathematicians are loners and perhaps lonely/unhappy? Well, it's not exactly statistically random sample of the population you've started with. You've practically selected for such people in the premise.
Then we make the process feed back on itself. Who becomes math teachers? Mathematicians. What do they know? They know math. But they don't always know why they know it. It seemed easy to them, compared to their classmates. So they believe in the teaching tactics they were shown, even though they didn't work for most people. So they use those same tactics a lot of the time. Why not? They're a proven success. And someone whose primary credential is teaching, not math, may have a huge barrier to getting to teach anything advanced since they probably didn't get to a lot of Math in that particular degree path. So we get a lot more of the same.
(A related problem, that I've expounded about on my web site in my critique of No Child Left Behind, is that we try to replicate, city by city, the development of a fresh curriculum for teaching math. We rely on teachers in town after town to come up with a teaching plan, a good presentation, and testing materials rather than just finding one or two or ten people who can present it well and centralizing that. What a waste. If we built computers like we teach math students, we'd be putting chip fabrication plants in each city, and wondering why people were so unhappy with the quality of computer hardware. And we'd be creating No Town's Chip Manufacturing Plant Left Behind programs to try to figure out why small towns couldn't keep pace with large ones. Centralization of effort and distributing value is something that pays huge dividends in both economy of scale and product quality. If kids could re-watch a presentation on video when they didn't get something, back it up, freeze frame it, etc., it would offer great capabilities we don't have with classes now. And it would free human teachers in each town to focus on question answering and helping people in need rather than doing mundane preparation work that is redundant with prep work done by the analogous people in every other town.)
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Being good at math apparently doesn't make you very sensible either.
"In essence, happiness is overrated"
The obvious conclusion is just the opposite.
Anyhow, the question needs to be asked: does a kid have no friends because she concerns herself so much with numbers, or does she concern herself so much with number because she has no friends? Both? Maybe it's being smart and shy that's the kiss of death.
Property is theft.
Well I'm at least good at math, I think, but my girlfriend always states I'm quite MUCH too confident. And I'm pretty sure she's right *vbeg*.
So... what?
Whenever I get drunk (or bent), my math sills go down yet my people skills go way up.
Yeah, on Slashdot? And I'm the Marlboro man.
Mathematics is not the rigid and rigidity-producing schema that the layman thinks it is; rather, in it we find ourselves at that meeting point of constraint and freedom that is the very essence of human nature. - Hermann Weyl
As we all suspected,
...
the overfed confidence of americans is an artifact of their education system.
this article talks about the special case of math education and associates math failure
with high confidence.
I guess it applies to many other fields, like politics, e.g. ppl feel confident about their great country and dont feel the need to sit down and think what their leaders may be doing wrong.
Also this whole attitude creates the PHB corporate culture. Since confidence is such a highly valued attribute, the more confident u are, the more likely it is that confident ppl end up in important positions. But confidence, especially in the US, is not positively correlated with actual skill. As a result, idiots become managers and CEOs.
I have a gut feeling that the Americans who created the first parliamentary democracy, won the WWII and sent ppl to the moon, drew confidence only from achievements not by having teachers or psychologists teaching them how to be confident. It may be time that America went back to the basics
What if I'm bad with people AND bad at math?!?
~hs
An attractive woman can be a dunce and someone will still laugh at her jokes, hang on her every word, carry her luggage, and give her a job. For the wrong reasons? Absolutely. I sometimes think that's part of the reason that some men do find intelligent women frightening. Add the power they already have via their sex to their intelligence, and it can be daunting. The guy can be left wondering if she's thinking "I could sleep my way to the top and beat you anyway, but I'll play it your way just because I find this way more amusing for now." Even when a person has too much character to win that way, the fact that they have the option can be irritating.
At least, there's a correlation between these type of articles appearing in Slashdot and your overriding instinct to be the saviour of mathkind.
Let's keep in mind that "Correlation does not equate Causation" does not equate with "There is never causation if I repeat that enough."
Just goes to show how sex motivates. Afterall, look what the "16 virgins in heaven" hypocracy has done.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Too late for anyone to read this, and I've no doubt there are a load of "Bullshit, just look at me/some famous guy" posts, but... The Myers Briggs personality-type test (so often used in profiling people for managament) identifies the "ENFP" type or "Champion/Advocate" as being exceptionally good with people, while usually also having a curious propensity for maths, due to their intuitive tendency and ability to seek patterns and deeper understanding in all things. Since ENFPs account for about 3% of the population, this would seem to fly in the face of the article. Just a thought. See here for a profile break-down.
Meta will eat itself
"Study Shows Good With Math Means Bad With People"
Where exactly is that written in the article?
Creating sensationalist titles to make people rush to read the post is not very beneficial to Slashdot's credibility.
Most people are bad at math because they lack the logical mindset it requires. It is a character trait, if you will. When choosing your friends, you are likely to choose people who possess character traits similar to your own, and if your character traits are particularly suited to math, then you will find a far smaller pool of people from which to choose friends. This lack of socialization opportunities is likely to make you less happy. It's not you, it's them.
It's hard to be confident about mathematics with the way that it's being taught in school. It seems to me that people don't enjoy mathematics because they don't understand it. We had things like 1 + 1 = 2 drilled into our heads and we were simply expected to accept it; the first time I heard 1 + 1 = 10 was probably one of the most enlightening in my life. I finally realized that the numbers were just symbols behind a concept, and the concept is quite beautiful.
I think this is cultural. Many of the "unhappy" cultures really push people like crazy towards achievement, and really emphasize it, from the curriculum on down.
We seem to emphasize apparent results - namely, grades to get you in a good school. So in our culture, "dumbed down" classes are rewarded because they give students better grades and better chances at admission. And of course this makes students feel better and more confident - it just doesn't make them better at what they're learning.
D
...are more likely to think illogically. If one is not bound by logic, one tends to ignore the odds (by being completely ignorant of them) and think more positively, relying on "luck" and "it could happen". I would imagine one would be happier always thinking there is a chance than thinking the odds are always against them.
There is no excuse to happiness
if you understand your surroundings.
From reading the article the bottom line is this. Countries that try too hard to make a subject fun, and make all their students feel good about everything tend not to do as well. The simple lesson to be learned here is to stop being wusses and telling little Johnny that he did a great job even though he screwed up the whole thing. Tell him he is wrong and work with him to learn how to do it right. Contructive critisism. It makes people less arrogant and hopefully better people. I sometimes think that most people in my generation and after never learned about constructive critisism. Personally I prefer it. If I screwed up, I want to know that I did, I want to know why I screwed up, and how not to do it again. Are we so afraid of hurting little Johnny's feelings that we don't give a damn if he hurts himself? And we wonder why we have stupid lawsuits about not having proper warnings that hot coffee is hot, etc, etc.
...as mathematicians we understand the concept of Infinity and the impossibility in determining it's exact value and perfect happiness is infinite in nature by Nicomachean Ethics therefore we are ever tending towards happiness, never quite reaching there.
A word problem: Given the following facts,
Ignorance == Bliss
If you're not being challenged with hard problems, you will be more confident because, of those problems which you have seen, you will have gotten more right.
If you keep getting problems wrong, you get fewer pats on the back, and will be less confident.
Could it be possible that this study just says that US math education is too easy?
"It's" means "it is." That aside, which herd are you herding me into? Accusing me of hyperbole might have been warranted, but I'm honestly puzzled at your assessment of herd mentality. I actually do get shunned and ridiculed for saying "torture is wrong." Or is that very sentiment the "herd" mentality to which you object? I'm unclear on whether you're objecting to my opposition to torture, or to my perception that such opposition puts me in a rather unpopular (in certain circles) minority.
I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but you could have the common decency to say something. Your post is just contempt, but with no content to give me a reason to consider your viewpoint. You don't even present an argument, a premise, an allegation of fact, nothing. You haven't said anything. This is actually the very thing I referred to earlier in the thread. You seem to consider contempt and derision to be valid arguments. You are a strange creature.
Girls score higher than boys in most subject areas in school. Women make up more than half of all college students. A high percentage of law and medical students are female. Women are not penalized socially for being smart or articulate.
all of that is true, until they have kids. many women choose (or are pressured) to stay home for a number of years and may or may not return to the workplace. men, who according to some, are statisitcally inferior, choose (or are pressured) to stay in the work force. they continue to advance professionally until they hit the critical age of 45-55, which is considered the height of earning potential. women who have left the workplace for an extended period of time often lag behind men (in professional terms) who have never left.
i think that while the workplace has made huge strides for women's equality, however, the home has not.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
As a math geek raised in a family of math geeks who hangs out with math professors on occasion I have to ask what are they testing. Most high level math professional make mistakes with arithmetic. In fact I've heard many math magicians state that as you get more advanced you get more likely to make mistakes at the simple stuff. Yes you have to pay attention to details in math but primary school level math is really on the level of elementary school reading comprehension.
Oh, the ironing is delicious.
The article is about kids that enjoy and are confident about their math class actually do poorly in math especially when compared to kids who are in classes that don't try to coddle them and make them feel smart when they aren't.
It isn't about how math heads relate to other people, or about how some people do better at math than others, it isn't really about people at all, but rather about policies that try to make math "fun" and "engaging" fail at teaching math.
BTW, I love math, but then I live at the extreme end of the bell curve.
For years, Europeans and Liberals have been touting an interesting was to determine the "Best" country to live in. When Americans say America is best because of our GDP, they frown and say "no no no" "you are not happy". Then they point to Nigeria and say "Nigerians are more happy".
I guess us miserable Americans can now take comfort in our GDP and our Math.
Why would anyone trust this study when it's obviously by people who are bad with math who are looking to validate their ineptitude? They probably consider being ``good with people'' as being able to get away with lying to get what you want. Like getting paid for ``studies'' like these.
Would you please just tag these studies as 'for american society only'?
Because in most schools in India, the student who's good with academics and math/sciences etc is considered a good kid - and since studies are still the biggest priority of the kids there (as opposed to footbal, basketball, boyfriends, girlfriends, drugs, condoms etc), the good kid ends up being reasonably popular. Sure, sports and other activities are good, but they are considered as other activities, not mainstream life. So, a kid who's goo in math is actually pretty happy over there.
For life, sure, kid who's good in math == admissions into elite schools of tech/science == good jobs later == since he was not aloof in life before, a reasonably good personality results == prospects of landing a wife later are pretty good if he's a guy - no harm done because he was good in math in that aspect. IN other words, life goes on without any major issues and without any unhappiness resulting just because he/she was good in math=.
But for americans america is the only world, so I guess what applies to americans must be true for everyone eh?
but only where it's folly to be wise.
At least give Parent Post a rating of "overrated".
since the age of 15 I've pretty much have never had to sleep alone unless I've wanted to, and many times I've pretty much had to knock back offers from attractive girls with a stick
I undestand people need to sometimes introduce themselves to add more credibility, but this is obviously someone who is illustrating some perverse form of false modesty. Please spare me!
Apparently, the actual survey was a test of selected math questions as well as inquiries as to the student's confidence level and enjoyment of the subject. Given the inverse relationship, wouldn't it be likely that the better performance vs. decreased enjoyment and confidence was simply due to "harder" courses that pushed students more to their limits? E.g., they felt less confident overall due to more complex material, but had acquired more knowledge in the process?
The sky is blue, too!
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Whoever posted this article they way they did at Slashdot should be ashamed to call themself a nerd. First, there is no mention of isolating the causes of unhappiness -- just the most broad kind of correlation. Second, math is work. Achievement in math is hard work. Anyone expecting short term happiness (happiness achieved during the school years) from hard work is just plain unrealistic. But, the study doesn't even answer the question as to whether or not those math students are happier later in life. I've personally always believed that smart people face tougher childhoods and easier adulthoods, and that the tradeoff of the effort is worth it. Why promote this article the way you're promoting it here? It's terrible science and headlined in much the way newspapers headline studies in ways that get people to read the headline, say "uh huh", then never read the article or think about whether or not there's something to the story. A better headline would have been "Another Researcher Gets Paid for Useless Study". This whole mess would have made a better Onion article.
Ok, Ignorance is Bliss...
Now when do I get to eat that juicy steak?
I really am that good. The only thing my gigantic intellect has yet to figure out is, why is the world not bowing at my feet? Ah, you're all just too stupid to recognize my brilliance. ;-)
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Just a note... I know the collequial (sp?) meaning of antisocial is similar to "shy" or "bad with people"
however... its not really what it means. Anti-social litterally means "against society" and refers to a person who is a sociopath, or could be said to "not have a conscience". You know, the people who scam people and say that their victems deserved to be scamed because they were dumb enough to fall for it.
Often they can, in fact, be quite charming and confident people.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
B**ls**t! These as**oles presume to tell ME that my natural mathematical apptitude presumes an inability to work well with others?! F**k them! I get along GREAT with everyone you a**hole! Hey! What are you looking at? Can't you see I'm working on a third-level derivative you mo**erfu**ing pr*ck!
People get shouted down for saying anythnig that isn't PC, regardless of who's defining PC at the moment. When I had problems with Mr. Clinton and his people, I wastreated as a pariah or (literally) shouted down. When I have problems with Mr. Bush and his people, I am treated as a pariah or told I'm nuts.
You need to either get the chip off your shoulder or get out of your intellectual ghetto.
IMO.
Note that I'm not shouting. 8^)
Is the number 7 odd, or just different?
D&D is perhaps unique as a social activity that requires very few social skills.
I suspect the submitter was projecting after reading the article. That is, they have trouble with people and like math, and assumed that's what the article was talking about.
I love math, and am minoring in it, and I can't count my friends on one hand! Oh, wait...shoot...
You all have Oo.o and Firefox, so get World Wind.
I am considered very funny by people that know me, and I am Math PHD student, that you are an idiot indicates a small privates (so try to compensate) showing how much you know (I know too many people like that, but to be honest they are in math and outside of math) Just see you local police department (the problem with them is that they need to know how to count bullets, nothing else)