Men And Women Think Women Are Bad At Basic Math

sciencehabit writes "Think women can't do math? You're wrong — but new research (paywalled) shows you might not change your mind, even if you get evidence to the contrary. A study of how both men and women perceive each other's mathematical ability finds that an unconscious bias against women — by both men and women — could be skewing hiring decisions, widening the gender gap in mathematical professions like engineering."

Comments

In my experience

[CmdrEdem]

Women and men are equally bad at math. Specially at teaching math. It's not an easy subject and it's not a natural way to think about anything.

Re: In my experience

[kayaker01]

The older I become, the less significant difference I see between the sexes. Kinda sad?

Re:In my experience

[jbmartin6]

My experience is that math gets easier the more you do it. In other words, practice makes perfect. I've also noticed that people who are inclined to accept "I am just not good at math" are less likely to put in the work and train their brains to think in math, and thus never learn it. I would not be surprised to find that the stuff the article talks about leads to more females taking that excuse and opting out of math rather than putting in the work.

Re: In my experience

[DoofusOfDeath]

The older I become, the less significant difference I see between the sexes. Kinda sad?

No, it just means you finally need glasses.

Re:In my experience

[gIobaljustin]

My experience is that math gets easier the more you do it. In other words, practice makes perfect.

My experience is that most people just don't have the aptitude for it, mainly because most people are unintelligent. Rote memorization is the best they can do, but at that point, you're not really doing math at all.

Re:In my experience

[CastrTroy]

Most people who are good at math also have very little ability to teach it, because it comes so naturally to them. Think about it this way. If you ask singers how to sing better, most of them would probably have no idea how to help you sing better, or what they were doing to make themselves sing so well. They just can, and they've been doing it since they were 3. Same goes for most people who are good at math. There are some people who are good at math who can also teach it, but I don't believe that the two skills are related in any way. Being extremely good at math might even be a hindrance. I know I tried to help a few friends in highschool with math, and I was very unsuccessful. I couldn't wrap my head around what people found so hard about basic algebra.

Re:In my experience

[NotDrWho]

What always made math so hard for me weren't the concepts themselves, it was my speed at processing math problems in my head. If I could have had unlimited time, I could have scored an "A" on every test. Unfortunately, most math tests are time-limited and my speed at processing problems always seemed to lag behind everyone else, which left me a wreck on tests (but with an "A+" on every homework assignment). I could answer 20 questions perfectly in the time allotted, and not answer the next 20 questions at all; or I could rush through the test a nervous wreck and barely pass (obviously I chose the latter). When I finally was able to take some online math classes at my university, I went from struggling to get C's in my math courses to getting an A in every one (the tests for the online courses weren't timed).

So my suggestion is that, if you really want to see a jump in math skills, start placing more emphasis on learning the concepts and less emphasis on how fast students can process problems. Allow students unlimited time on tests if they want it (maybe give them the option of taking tests after school instead of in class). It will give a lot of students like me a lot more confidence in themselves once they realize that they're not fucking stupid or "just bad at math"--that they're just slower, more deliberate, and more thoughtful.

Re:In my experience

[Sique]

Actually, you do learn math by rote memorization. Those of us who were interested in math from the beginning were training it all the time by playing around with numbers or geometrical objects, which is just rote memorization with spices on top. And you get really good at math by doing math chores all the time.

Re:In my experience

[Hognoxious]

My wife claims she is 'bad at math'. Yet she is a freeking human calculator and can figure most math out to 3 to 4 decimal digits in her head.

No conundrum, no contradiction. She's good at arithmetic.

Re:In my experience

[AmiMoJo]

It's a western thing. Westerners think they are just not good at some things, and never will be. In the far east it is accepted that anyone can learn pretty much anything if they put in enough effort. Therefore saying "I'm not good at maths" in Japan or South Korea is actually saying "I'm too lazy to master this".

Of course they also have a lot of kids killing themselves due to the pressure, and some people do have genuine learning difficulties that they can't do anything about.

Re:In my experience

[NotDrWho]

Except over time, with practice, speed on the lower-level stuff does build. It's the new stuff that takes time to process.

Re: In my experience

[cayenne8]

*sigh*

This is what we get for letting them get out of the kitchen in the first place...

;)

Re:In my experience

[gIobaljustin]

Actually, you do learn math by rote memorization.

Using existing knowledge and forming conclusions about why it works is not the same as rote memorization, though you'll need to retain some information in order to do that. It seems you don't know what I'm talking about.

It's a shame. Most people can't even identify the problem with math education, let alone think of a solution to fix it.

Re:In my experience

[Simon Brooke]

Women and men are equally bad at math. Specially at teaching math. It's not an easy subject and it's not a natural way to think about anything.

In my experience this is nonsense. I agree that maths is pretty universally badly taught - after all, if you're good at maths, your career choices are being a quant paid in millions, an engineer or computer scientist paid in hundreds of thousands, or a school teacher paid in a few tens of thousands. The market (and we know that the market is never wrong, don't we, children?) systematically selects people who are bad at maths to teach maths. The results are not surprising.

But maths isn't hard. Maths is very, very easy; it is a natural way to think about more or less everything. If you take the school teachers out of the way and let children get on and learn the physics of whatever it is that interests them (for me it was sailing boats, but it really doesn't matter - we live in a mathematical universe) from the books in their own time, they will be good at maths. I really don't believe anyone is born bad at maths; we're taught to be bad at maths.

Re:In my experience

[i kan reed]

I'm not trying to make the argument that there are huge biological or innate differences in people. This is intended to communicate a problem(that the education system has since gotten wise to).

When we were taught to multiply in elementary school, the teacher handed out peices of paper with a big grid of all the multiples from 1x1 to 12x12, and we were told to memorize them(and spend all class several days repeatedly, by rote regurgitating rows in the table with quizzes built to emphasize this). I didn't bother. I started seeing patterns in the numbers. Basic stuff. 5*x=half of x with a 5 on the end if x was odd. You know the patterns with 9 too, I'm sure. As a result, I never had trouble with any multiplication, even as multi-digit things started coming. But students who learned by rote, they really got stuck, right at the 3 digit multiplication.

The same problem crops up in middle school pre-algebra. They teach students a series of steps to get from mx+b=n to get to x=(n-b)/m, rather than explaining the goal, and the tools in your toolbox to get there. It was "do these things". So students who spent their study time doing those same steps over and over were simply not prepared for true algebra, and solving quadratic equations, and had to learn from the beginning again.

It's a failure of the teaching process to show that math is an elegant set of interactions of ideas, rather than a process, where the student is just a slow computer. Your or I could replace someone who's only skill is following those simple steps over and over with a simple shell script.

Re: In my experience

[peragrin]

Exactly. You can see it all the time at restaurants. Take a group of men and an equal sized group of women.

At the end of the night the women will separate out each drink good item and try to figure out a way for each to pay their own share. This takes a long time and is seldom right.

The guys throw a bunch of money in the center of the table and see if it adds up close to the bill and leaves it. This is faster but sometimes you end up over paying by a lot.

Re:In my experience

[Alioth]

No, you learn *some* by rote memorization (and even then you're pushing the definition of rote memorization) but rote memorization is hardly the whole picture.

For instance, I'm just about halfway through Calculus 1. Now I don't want to have to derive from first principles how to differentiate something, so I do have to memorize some rules. But I've not just rote memorized (for example) the chain rule as a procedure, I've also studied the proof of this so understand why the chain rule actually works. This makes the chain rule easier to remember and apply correctly than just memorizing the chain rule by rote without understanding how it actually works.

Similarly, you can rote memorize what the sin and cosine functions do, but if you understand how the values sin and cos return come about, they aren't just mysterious functions that generate magic numbers and have a whole bunch of identities you have to remember. You can actually do something useful with these things.

At the end of the day to take some real world problem and model it with mathematics, you can't just merely rote memorize a bunch of stuff, you have to understand it too so you can actually construct something useful with what you've learned.

Re:In my experience

[Oligonicella]

Only to a pedant.

Re:In my experience

[Oligonicella]

There's only one possible outcome since Humans only think one way.

You are incorrect. Since you are incorrect at this, the rest of your logic is rather crumbly.

Re:In my experience

[cyn1c77]

Actually, you do learn math by rote memorization. Those of us who were interested in math from the beginning were training it all the time by playing around with numbers or geometrical objects, which is just rote memorization with spices on top. And you get really good at math by doing math chores all the time.

That's not really true at all. Rote memorization just teaches you the sets of numbers that you have memorized. Actual understanding of the addition process allows one to add any set of numbers, even if they have never seen them before. In fact, with proper teaching, you should be able to add properly, at first attempt, with no memorization required.

Teaching the method rather than memorization is much more efficient given that there are, by definition, an infinite set of numbers.

Sadly, the US teaching methodology forces everyone to memorize basic concepts first. Most teachers then muddle through the theory so poorly that only students with good aptitude and home lives are able to extract the general methodology in a decent amount of time. The rest fall back on memorization for a few years until they forget entirely. Then they spend the rest of their lives terrified of math.

Re:In my experience

[bill_mcgonigle]

Therefore saying "I'm not good at maths" in Japan or South Korea is actually saying "I'm too lazy to master this".

The meaning is the same everywhere, it's just whether the culture allows one to call them on it.

Re:In my experience

[geekoid]

I like how you assume she only does arithmetic.
IT's that kind of ingrained cultural bias the article is talking about. Nothing in the sentence say arithmetic.

Re: In my experience

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The older you have become, the more exceptions you have encountered which shatter common stereotypes. By the time you hit 70-80 years of age, the whole of humanity probably seems like am unweighted random behaviour generator.

The relevant Quote:

The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.

-- Jonathan Swift

Re:In my experience

[ranton]

Most people who are good at math also have very little ability to teach it, because it comes so naturally to them.

While many people think this, I doubt it is true. Math always came very naturally to me, and I was self taught in algebra and calculus years before either was taught to me in school (my parents weren't good at math, but they bought me used high school text books). But I always excelled at teaching math to others.

Once I started tutoring calculus I did have to approach teaching in a very different way. It was becoming too complex to teach easily, but I couldn't teach in the same way I learned because it came naturally to me. But because I understood the material so thoroughly, I was able to break the process down to a level where I could identify where the student's weaknesses were. This also happens to be the reason I actually started showing my work (which I always fought teachers on), just so I could help show other students how they could work through the problem in a similar way. If I skipped steps in my head it was too hard to explain things to them.

People who were never good at math probably got through school with tips and tricks from teachers. Often their knowledge of calculus ended with the power rule. These tactics help students get Bs on their tests, but they do not help build understanding. Someone like this will have a very hard time teaching anyone whose difficulties are even slightly different than their own (other than perhaps teaching them how to do shortcuts that don't teach anything but how to get through the class).

From my experience, most struggles that students have in math actually stem from a lack of prerequisite skills they never learned properly. Once I identified difficulties with Algebra and sometimes topics as basic as fractions, the problems they had with calculus started to melt away. The other major struggle was that students were never taught how to approach math properly, in a methodical way of breaking the problem down into smaller parts and solving them in steps.

I am obviously a big proponent of every student having a few tutors throughout their schooling to fill in the cracks and build a better foundation of knowledge to build on.

Re:In my experience

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I like how you assume GP is suffering from ingrained cultural bias.

OP said his/her wife is a human calculator.

A standard calculator does arithmetic, and that's it. He didn't say she's a scientific calculator, or a graphing calculator, or MATLAB.

Re:In my experience

[ranton]

In my experience women are actually *much* better at math than guys.

Growing up all the dudes had C/D's the girls all had A/B's. So I am not sure where 'bad at math' comes from.

Since almost everyone is bad at math, no one thinks about the vast majority of students who struggled with math class. They only remember the students who excelled at math. And for mostly cultural and perhaps some minor biological reasons, most of them are usually boys. So when people think of which gender is bad at math, they think of girls only because most of the very best math students they knew were boys. They don't think of the fact that the average math scores of the girls may have been higher than the average math scores of the boys.

Re:In my experience

[ranton]

My wife claims she is 'bad at math'. Yet she is a freeking human calculator and can figure most math out to 3 to 4 decimal digits in her head.

No conundrum, no contradiction. She's good at arithmetic.

No conundrum huh? She also figures out formulas then says 'I thought everyone could do that'. We teach people to think they are 'bad at math'. What we dont teach is 'practice makes perfect'. I think if I showed her linear algebra she would be doing some cool stuff. In fact I think I will.

Yes, there was no conundrum in your previous post. You may have just added additional information that creates a conundrum now, but nothing in your original post would lead anyone to believe your wife is as good at algebra / calculus / logic as she is at arithmetic.

Re: In my experience

[TheCarp]

> By the time you hit 70-80 years of age, the whole of humanity probably seems like am unweighted
> random behaviour generator.

Doubtful. Problem is, most people don't really get a representative sampling of that behaviour; and can build both behaviours and filters that reduce the randomness or perception of it.

I was going to go into a rant about perception and treating people badly and getting treated badly...ie self fullifilling ideas. However, a better example is texas holdem players. We can take an objectively analyse any situation in the game and come out with odds. I can tell you, based on those, that out of the gate, the best hole cards out there: Pocket Aces....are NEVER more than a 3 to 1 favorite.... not even against 7 2 off.

Thing is, you would think that after thousands of hands, players would start to get hip to the statistics involved, and many do, however, an average night is often maybe a couple of hundred hands at a decent table. The number of hands you need to play to really get a significant sample is much larger than a night or two of casual play....far too long for most people to really get a sense of it without rigerous study....even then people's intuitive feel for it tends to get very skewed by recent events.

You will hear people who have played the game for years talk about entirely stupid things like implying that past outcomes affect future odds, or being shocked that Pocket aces is never more than a 3 to 1 favorite.

Re: In my experience

[50000BTU_barbecue]

What do ball bearings have to do with this?

http://www.fag.de/content.fag....

I used to work in an industrial park with a FAG outlet in it, with the company name in HUGE letters. I laughed every time I passed by. Yes, I'm immature...

Re:In my experience

[stdarg]

I just read the first 6 pages of that pdf and had to stop. I'm just blown away that you think that pdf has any valuable insights.

All of the premises so far are incorrect. The idea that math is supposed to be this playful fun activity that people just kind of discover on their own, perhaps with little nudges, would lead to a society where almost nobody learns math because most people aren't that smart or creative. The premise that math is not useful to society is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. The premise that math is not a tool for science and technology is maybe tied for that.

Those are obviously wrong so I won't elaborate, but I want to talk more about the music and painting allegory in the intro which seems to inform the author's view on how math "should" be. I don't know much about music (the same as the author, I'm guessing), but my wife spent a few years at a painting atelier learning classical realist painting, and let me tell you, it's absolutely not about "expressing yourself and your feelings and things like that—really way-out-there abstract stuff." Nope. You know why? Because that produces trash. It's what got us the modern art movement, which is a laughingstock to most people in this world. (If you genuinely find yourself swooning over the "expression" and "feelings" in a Mondrian painting of squares or the swooping colors and "eroticism" of a Georgia O'Keeffe flower painting, you need your head examined.)

So yeah, in your first 6 months to a year of learning painting it's pretty common to not pick up a paintbrush unless you're a prodigy. Learning to paint starts with learning to see and learning to measure. Then you go on to copying simple figures. Not drawing from life! No don't even think of that, it's a waste of your time and you'll learn bad habits that you need to unlearn later. You copy classical studies like the Bargue drawings. The first Bargue that you copy is probably an eye or a forearm made with just a few lines that the master threw down as a basic exercise for his students. It took him seconds to produce a general eye-like shape. But the student is going to spend hours copying that. You master the ability to have a drawing sitting next to your paper, and copying the lengths and angles and weights exactly, just by looking. Then later, you move the drawing you're copying a few feet away so that you have to adjust the size in your head. Notice we're not even close to starting to learn how to shade. And boy, actually painting with paints is a lonnnng way off still.

Does this kill the retarded exuberance of just throwing paint on paper, literally splashing it, and then looking at it and saying "OMG I totally expressed myself I'm so awesome I'm a special snowflake" -- yes, absolutely. That's the point. It's a craft that has to be mastered, and it's not easy. The fun part begins after that.

I don't think it's possible for a person today to reach the same artistic heights as the classical masters on their own. It's exceedingly rare to do so. All the classical masters spent years, usually from their early childhoods to adulthood, studying in someone else's studio, before making their own style.

It would be similar to finding someone who independently reinvented modern math. You may be thinking of Srinivasa Ramanujan here, but would he have reached the heights he did if he hadn't been given that initial formal training and been exposed to those advanced trig books? Who knows. But in any case, how many Srinivasas are there in the world at a given time?

Most people need to be trained to master something. The author disagrees derisively when he says:

"SIMPLICIO: I don’t think that’s very fair. Surely teaching methods have improved since then.

SALVIATI: You mean training methods. Teaching is a messy human relationship; it does not require a method. Or rather I should say, if you need a method you’re probably not a very good teacher"

A) What

Re:In my experience

[ranton]

I like how you assume she only does arithmetic.
IT's that kind of ingrained cultural bias the article is talking about. Nothing in the sentence say arithmetic.

Uh, are you reading the same post that I am? All he mentioned was arithmetic:

My wife claims she is 'bad at math'. Yet she is a freeking human calculator and can figure most math out to 3 to 4 decimal digits in her head.

You do know what word arithmetic means right? In truth even calling it arithmetic isn't that accurate, it is better defined as elementary arithmetic (performing the four basic operations on real numbers).

Re:In my experience

[tomhath]

Specially at teaching math.

And further, those who are good at math tend to be especially bad at teaching it to people who don't get it.

In my experience math teachers at the primary levels don't get it, and try to teach math as a rote process (memorize multiplication tables, trig functions, etc). At higher levels (college) you get mostly grad students working on their PhDs who have no teaching experience or training

Re: In my experience

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The older you have become, the more exceptions you have encountered which shatter common stereotypes. By the time you hit 70-80 years of age, the whole of humanity probably seems like am unweighted random behaviour generator.

This is beautiful.

Re:In my experience

[gIobaljustin]

I'm just blown away that you think that pdf has any valuable insights.

I'm just blown away that you don't. Well, not really.

you end up with a bunch of idiots who don't know how to paint (or do math).

Like now.

Luckily, the drudgery part of math is much shorter and much easier to learn than painting.

And also easier to forget, as we've seen. But go on ruining people's educations, except for those with an exceedingly high aptitude and willpower. Everyone suffers at least a bit under the current system.

It's hilarious that you think that paper is connected with identifying the problem in math education

I think it identifies at least part of the problem.

That paper doesn't even... oh man I don't even have the words to describe what a fail that paper is.

Are you talking about your long, angry post, or the paper? It seems more like you're talking about your post.

Well, judging from the tone of your post, you're a lost cause. Sad (not really), but true.

Re:In my experience

[lgw]

Drill makes the computation faster. Drill also helps build the basic self-discipline we all need to get through life on our own. Both have diminishing returns once you get the hang of them.

For the first few years of schooling, drill to improve performance at basic computation is perfectly appropriate. There's no excuse for being 10 and not being able to do sums as fast as you normally write, or to read out loud as fast as you normally speak. Most people seem to fail at both, which is a really sad note about our society. Elementary school is not a babysitting service!

Re: In my experience

[Zero__Kelvin]

No. It just means you are old enough know to stop paying so much attention to her booty and actually mature enough to get a clue. As I often say: Men say women are crazy, women say men are crazy, and they are both right

Re:In my experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Math professor here.

I notice the sort of traits that you exhibit in about 5% of my students. A lot of people really are struggling to get things done in the allotted time. A few comments:

1. Class time is finite. We have a limited amount of time to administer tests. It upsets me that students may require more than the allotted time, but I typically design a test that I expect my students can get done in about 75% of the time allotted (allowing a small buffer...by the way, this usually means I could do it in about 25% of the allotted time). If I give them more time, I use up class time that could be used for presentation of material. Some schools I've attended have had "Exam periods" (usually 2 or 3 evenings during the semester) which are much longer and exclusively for taking the exam...out of the question at my college since so many of our students are full time employed or commute.
2. If you really do struggle consistently, you might have a learning disability. Our college has a disability services division, and for students who have been approved by that department, I *do* allow them extended time to take the test (in the Disability services proctor room)
3. Finally, I wouldn't say this is a big deal in any of my classes, but certain jobs might require a certain level of speed. I don't feel that its my responsibility to require that however

Re:In my experience

[AthanasiusKircher]

So my suggestion is that, if you really want to see a jump in math skills, start placing more emphasis on learning the concepts and less emphasis on how fast students can process problems. Allow students unlimited time on tests if they want it (maybe give them the option of taking tests after school instead of in class). It will give a lot of students like me a lot more confidence in themselves

As someone who has taught math at the high school level, I definitely agree with you up to a point. I usually tried to design tests so that an average student could complete it with plenty of time to spare -- those who needed a little more time could then take it.

However, there is a problem that gradually starts to accumulate with students who can't do math at a reasonable speed. My first year teaching (at a not-so-great school in a not-so-great location), I had seniors in high school who were enrolled in algebra II, but some of them couldn't do basic arithmetic. Sure -- if you gave them enough time, they could use their fingers or calculators to determine what 12 minus 7 is. (Don't ask how these students managed to get to algebra II -- it was years of terrible teachers and vacancies with substitute teachers passing students who shouldn't have been.)

These students were completely incapable of understanding most of the stuff going on in class on a regular basis. Even the students who could do some semblance of basic arithmetic hadn't internalized many of the basic rules of algebra, etc. So, while -- again -- they could work through these things at a very slow pace, they had no idea of what they were doing or why when it came to higher-level questions. Eventually, I realized the only way I could teach unprepared students algebra II according to the state-mandated curriculum was to teach basic algorithms for solving the minimum set of basic problems required. (Sending them back to algebra I was not an option, since officially they had "passed" it.) The students had no perspective for why they were doing anything, but they could do meaningless symbolic manipulation enough to satisfy requirements.

And that's what happens when most students aren't drilled enough to internalize basic skills at various levels. The point of taking speed tests at elementary levels is because if you can't immediately do arithmetic in your head, you'll have no clue what's going on when solving some 10-step equation in algebra. And, if you don't internalize the equation solving steps in basic algebra to the point that you can do them reasonably quickly, you'll have no idea what to make of your calculus teacher zooming through such a problem to get to the actual derivatives or integrals or whatever.

(Also, note that smarter students who are given unlimited time also can make use of unlimited methods to check their work -- even taking to guessing answers with trial-and-error, or doing the same problem 5 times until they come up with something that "checks." While there is a value in persevering until you can get an answer you're sure is "right," it doesn't necessarily tell a teacher whether you actually know what you're doing. The time to do trial-and-error is on homework assignments before a test until you can figure out the right way to do something -- by a test, you should have accumulated enough fluency to start on the right track.)

So, I agree that there needs to be a balance. Testing new skills should probably be done with plenty of time, so students have time to reason things out. But eventually they need to internalize the steps enough to do them reasonably quickly -- and subsequent tests using that material needs to evaluate that.

If not, you'll end up with students who can't do anything and can't understand any higher-level steps in math, because they're still stuck taking 30 seconds to figure out what 12 minus 7 is while trying to do a triple integral.

Re:In my experience

[lgw]

Some things in life come only with practice. Some things in life come only with hard work and patience. The most important things we need to do in life aren't fun. Self discipline is a worthwhile goal in and of itself.

And, really, I was as numerate as any kid is likely to be, but algebra would have been wasted on me before I was 10 or so. When we're young, we're naturally programmed to learn by example, to discover the patterns in life and the rules that let us cope with them. Teaching math is of curse important, but you first need some base on which to build the abstraction. Basic numeracy is just as important as basic literacy, and practice matters for both.

Re:In my experience

[Max Threshold]

It is easy and natural to some people. Those are the ones who should be teaching.

Re:In my experience

[stdarg]

And also easier to forget, as we've seen.

People tend to forget stuff they don't use. Right now the thing most people retain through adulthood is the rote memorization they learned in 2nd grade. For instance most people know 4 + 4 = 8 without counting on their fingers.

Think about how many times throughout school people recalled the fact that 4 + 4 = 8, compared to how many times they practiced an algorithm like long division. That's why people forget long division, not because they didn't get the "concept" of division or because learning long division by rote somehow shriveled their soul.

But go on ruining people's educations, except for those with an exceedingly high aptitude and willpower.

That doesn't make sense. Currently, most high school graduates have demonstrated an ability with algebra and geometry at a minimum. Very few people would ever get there if it weren't forced on them.

Everyone suffers at least a bit under the current system.

Sure, and there's plenty of room for improvement.

I think it identifies at least part of the problem.

He touches on some subjects that I agree with, such as the tedium of geometric proofs.. but for the wrong reason. It's not because we should trust our instincts and not bother proving stuff that is obvious as the author recommends. That's terrible advice. In fact sometimes the proofs of the most basic, intuitive concepts are beautiful and complex, if short and elegant. For instance in abstract algebra the proof that a group's identity element is unique is lovely and a great exercise that probably every abstract algebra student goes through.

Are you talking about your long, angry post, or the paper? It seems more like you're talking about your post.

That's a reading comprehension problem on your part. Clearly I was talking about "that paper" just like I indicated at the start of the sentence you quoted... not sure how you missed that.

And yes it does make me angry when idiots start convincing people to take a self-destructive path. I notice you didn't comment on what I said about people not understanding the benefits they themselves accrued under the system which they seek to destroy. It's a huge thing I see time and time again. It's even worse when the change is forced on people who know better, as happens so often in public education.

Well, judging from the tone of your post, you're a lost cause.

I'm certainly "lost" to your cause. That's the nature of fundamental disagreements. Stop trying to make it sound tragic, you sound silly.

Re:In my experience

[gIobaljustin]

People tend to forget stuff they don't use.

Yes, but if it's made more meaningful, they're at least slightly more likely to remember it. But then again, I'm not sure it should be about that.

not because they didn't get the "concept" of division

Most don't.

Currently, most high school graduates have demonstrated an ability with algebra and geometry at a minimum.

Simply incorrect. Sure, by our current standards, they can use it, but it's just rote memorization of processes and patterns. They don't understand the logic of it at all.

And yes it does make me angry when idiots start convincing people to take a self-destructive path.

His path looks much, much less destructive than the current system.

It's not because we should trust our instincts and not bother proving stuff that is obvious as the author recommends.

You said you stopped reading it, and that much is obvious.

I notice you didn't comment on what I said about people not understanding the benefits they themselves accrued under the system which they seek to destroy.

It is possible to derive at least some benefits from a terrible system while still advocating another system.

But really, I never bothered doing any of the busy work (waste of time) and learned on my own. It is almost entirely thanks to my own efforts that I understand math as much as I do now. About the only thing schools did for me was introducing me to the simplest concepts (addition, etc.), but I worked to understand it all on my own, since they weren't going to help with that.

Stop trying to make it sound tragic, you sound silly.

It's not tragic; it's comical.

I'll show Slashdot my True Ferocity soon enough. Wait and see.

Re:In my experience

[FuzzNugget]

It's kind of like trying to explain computers to some people. It is so natural and ingrained for us that it's actually difficult for us to express every logical pathway to "mere mortals" because we don't even consciously think about them. Some people just have lacking or limited ability to abstract, so every individual step takes a conscious and deliberate effort (god, that must be exhausting); the steps that don't even occur to us because they've become instinctive.

Re:In my experience

[jimbolauski]

Upper level mathematics comes down to understanding why you do a certain step. Unfortunately most teachers put almost all of the emphasis on memorizing the steps instead of understanding why you do them. My roommate went from failing calculus to getting a B because I was able to get him to understand the why.

Re:In my experience

[Ravaldy]

I don't judge a gender for being bad at math or anything else. Instead I judge a PERSON based on my experience around them.

Re:In my experience

[Darinbob]

In my experience, girls were much better at math than boys up through high school. This is mostly because of what you said: girls did their homework, boys goofed off. I had never even heard the trope of women being bad at math until I went to college (and it wasn't true there either).

As far as arithmetic and basic maths like accounting, of course women are good at that. Much of the time in traditional old-style families it is the woman in the household who manages the budget, often doing the accounting for a family business or farm. This was a principle part of a "home economics" degree.

Now advanced math is different from arithmetic and algebra and trigonometry. However that math is hard for everyone. And the myth about "girls aren't good at math" is being told about simpler math.

Re:In my experience

[mdielmann]

So my suggestion is that, if you really want to see a jump in math skills, start placing more emphasis on learning the concepts and less emphasis on how fast students can process problems.

Alternatively, they could test for both separately, because I think there is still value for being able to do math quickly even if it isn't normally as important as accuracy. There are ways to do math very quickly, and ways to do it right, but very slowly. If you only have the second technique you will still be correct, but not fast. It might be worth looking at techniques to improve your math speed.

It's certainly possible that you are using the more robust techniques and still find it slow going. Then repetition may be your only option to improve. It's been determined that the brain gets more efficient at things it does over and over again, so some improvement will be seen, although how much is difficult to say.

Re:In my experience

[gIobaljustin]

Somehow, I find myself doubting your own characterization as a self-made man.

Unmotivated and/or unintelligent people tend to do that. They're amazed when someone is more motivated than them to the point where they actually have a genuine interest in education. Baffling!

I am guessing that you had quite a bit more help from your teachers at school than you are letting on.

Nope. I asked them questions like, "Why does this work?" a number of times, but they were never able to answer it. For instance, they explained the Pythagorean theorem as a set of steps to get a certain result. Since I started learning calculus soon after I started my first algebra class, the teachers would simply turn me away when I had any questions, saying that it wasn't part of the curriculum. Which was true, but they were teaching the actual curriculum very poorly.

But it's funny that you assume that no one can learn on their own; that self-education is just an impossibility. I had access to books, and for me, that was enough. What's even more funny, though, is that you seem to think that I could actually come to an understanding of the material by listening to their nonsensical explanations. No one can, as they focus on memorization of facts, not understanding. If you want the latter, then you'll have to think about it yourself.

Re:In my experience

[narcc]

More "I have a special mind" nonsense.

Get over yourself. Most people can succeed at any intellectual pursuit, provided they're willing to put in the effort.

Re:In my experience

[david_thornley]

If you're particularly slow at some form of math, most likely you haven't mastered it yet, and need more practice. (It's also possible that you have some sort of disability, possibly undiagnosed.) If you can't do calculations fast, it's likely that you're working the problems out from the concepts. There's only so many concepts you're going to be able to learn at one time, so if you're still learning the concepts of algebra you are going to have a great deal of difficulty learning calculus.

Re:In my experience

[david_thornley]

To a certain extent, this is true. I could become halfway decent at many things if I worked on them hard enough. On the other hand, given equal amounts of time in different subjects, I'm sure I'd arrive at different levels of mastery. I've only got finite time, not enough to master every skill I'd like to have, so I have to prioritize. Saying "I'm not good at drawing" really means "for whatever reason, I haven't invested enough time in drawing to become good", not necessarily "I'm lazy" (although that also has an impact).

Re:In my experience

[mpe]

So my suggestion is that, if you really want to see a jump in math skills, start placing more emphasis on learning the concepts and less emphasis on how fast students can process problems. Allow students unlimited time on tests if they want it (maybe give them the option of taking tests after school instead of in class). It will give a lot of students like me a lot more confidence in themselves once they realize that they're not fucking stupid or "just bad at math"--that they're just slower, more deliberate, and more thoughtful.

Timed tests are common with many subjects. You'd have to make some radical changes to education to eliminate them.

Re:In my experience

[gIobaljustin]

More "I can do anything" nonsense.

Get over yourself. Most people can't succeed in more advanced intellectual pursuits, even if they're willing to put in the effort.

Re:In my experience

[narcc]

More "I can do anything" nonsense.

Difficulty reading? Not "I", but "most people".

Most people can't succeed in more advanced intellectual pursuits, even if they're willing to put in the effort.

I guess you're right. You've been reading for years and yet still have trouble with basic comprehension.

Or I'm right, and you just need to put in a bit of effort!

So... Are you hopelessly illiterate or is there hope for you yet?

Re:In my experience

[gIobaljustin]

Difficulty reading? Not "I", but "most people".

Okay. More "Most people can do anything" nonsense.

So... Are you hopelessly illiterate or is there hope for you yet?

It seems you've failed to understand my idea of intelligence. Even if I did make such a mistake, that alone would not prove me to be hopelessly unintelligent (by my standards). I also don't take that position (where making a mistake = you're unintelligent) when it comes to other people, except perhaps in extreme cases where it's a very basic mistake and the same type of thing happens repeatedly.

Re:In my experience

[gIobaljustin]

It seems you've failed to understand my idea of intelligence.

Or, in this case, you have no idea what it even is.

Re:In my experience

[k8to]

Being able to quickly execute arithmetic is a basic skill that everyone should be pushed to master.

However it has jack all to do with algebra II.

You're mistaking correlation with causation. Inability to quickly add and subtract doesn't really prevent one from understanding algebra. It's just that your students who never truly mastered basic arithmetic are not really truly mastering any of the math they're encountering.

Speed has little to do with it. It's a red herring for most areas of math. Better grasp does typically result in faster execution for the individual, but that does not imply that the slower individuals you encounter do not have a good grasp.

Re:In my experience

[hawkfish]

It's a western thing. Westerners think they are just not good at some things, and never will be. In the far east it is accepted that anyone can learn pretty much anything if they put in enough effort. Therefore saying "I'm not good at maths" in Japan or South Korea is actually saying "I'm too lazy to master this".

Of course they also have a lot of kids killing themselves due to the pressure, and some people do have genuine learning difficulties that they can't do anything about.

As someone who has studied a martial art for about 30 years, despite having little talent for it, I have to say that I love this Oriental attitude. Most MA classes are built around the idea that everyone can learn the basics of this stuff if they just practice regularly, and damn if it isn't true! Probably added 10-20 years to my life (or at least improved its quality.)

Re:In my experience

[strikethree]

Heh. I am unsure why your comment triggered this memory, but here it is:

My wife was worried that she did not have enough gas to get to the gas station. Her car went 300 miles on a tank of gas and she had driven 260 miles from a full tank. I told her that the gas station was 7 miles away and to figure out if she could make it to the gas station without running out of gas.

Needless to say, she could not figure it out. I was flabbergasted. It was the most basic math in the world. I stopped to think about it for a second and decided to ask the same question but framed differently: If you saw a pair of shoes that normally sold for $300 and instead, they were on sale for only $260, how much money did you save?

No sooner than the last syllable was leaving my mouth, she immediately answered $40. I then asked her if 7 was more than 40 and she replied no... so i asked her again: if she could drive 300 miles on a tank of gas and she had driven 260 miles, would she make it to the gas station that was 7 miles away without running out of gas. She had no idea.

All I could do was sigh. She could obviously do arithmetic but she obviously could not apply it generally.

Participation awards for boys!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we all know that women are better than men at some things, but men are never better than women at anything.

Re:Participation awards for boys!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we all know that women are better than men at some things, but men are never better than women at anything.

Umm, ever seen a woman load a dishwasher?

Re:Participation awards for boys!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you can pack a lot more in a dishwasher if getting the stuff actually clean is not a priority.

Re:Participation awards for boys!

[Anonymous Coward]

How sexist of you! You must be a White Male Capitalist! You're automatically wrong about... WELL, ABOUT EVERYTHING!!!

> cryingbaby.jpg

Re:Participation awards for boys!

[sandytaru]

It's not how many dishes you can pack in there, it's how they are oriented inside the dishwasher that matters. Unless you have a newer model with 128 spray jets in every direction, your dishwasher's cleaning power is going to be based out of the center of the rack where the jet sprayers come from. Thus, for maximum cleanliness, everything should be placed inside oriented with the dirty surface facing toward the middle. Sure, you can pack more dishes in by sticking them in the optimized stacking pattern along the rows, but they're not going to get as clean.

Re:Participation awards for boys!

[myth24601]

I can out dishwasher-pack my wife and get the stuff clean! While there may be some difference in the way we deal mentally with the challenge of fitting everything in that space, I think the bigger issue is that I am much more determined to not have to hand wash anything that I can't fit in there.

Re:Participation awards for boys!

[myth24601]

Men are better at avoiding work. If you can't pack it all in the dishwasher, you will have extra work to do when you hand wash what doesn't fit.

Re:Participation awards for boys!

[Chrisq]

I can out dishwasher-pack my wife and get the stuff clean! While there may be some difference in the way we deal mentally with the challenge of fitting everything in that space, I think the bigger issue is that I am much more determined to not have to hand wash anything that I can't fit in there.

I expect that as you pack things in you are thinking about the angle of the jets, water flow, type of dirt, etc. I do this all the time (this sauce will wash off from the flow down from the top jets while this baking tray needs a direct spray), whereas my wife uses general rules (better not put these plates too close because when I put that pan close it didn't get clean). This is not a male/female thing however, my mother was a scientist and used to think about dishwasher packing the same way that I do ... in fact she taught me the considerations!

Re:Participation awards for boys!

[93 Escort Wagon]

I can not get it through my wife's head that there is a REASON for the way I pack so much stuff together. She is now (after 7 years) able to imitate my layouts, but if we were to suddenly have, say, 4 more dinner plates in the rotation, she'd be unable to come up with a new way of packing everything in.

I've been married 30 years, and from what you say it seems pretty obvious - not only does your wife have you thoroughly trained... she's also much smarter than you.

My wife tells me - convincingly - I'm much better than she is at certain things. And I'm just now starting to figure out these are all things she doesn't want to do herself.

Re:Participation awards for boys!

[mdielmann]

I can compact dishes such that they only fill the bottom third of the dishwasher. The only drawback is ever using them again - the uncompacting routine is hugely intensive! I call this my VERY Lossy Dish Stacking Routine (I learned it at a Greek wedding). Note that it isn't very effective with metal kitchenware, and my cutlery packing algorithm doesn't allow for enough water to get between the cutlery and actually clean them.

Obligatory xkcd

[Hugh Pickens DOT Com]

https://xkcd.com/385/

Re:Obligatory xkcd

[retroworks]

Obligatory RTFA, (the comic is at the top of the second link)

Suck at maths....no arthimetic

[Chrisq]

What a shame that "ability at maths" is seen by TFA as the ability to "add up sets of two-digit numbers in a 4-minute math sprint".

Re:Suck at maths....no arthimetic

[AdamWill]

The reason for this is given right in the article: it's a task already known to be performed equally well by both men and women, so the test runners don't have to try and compensate for a difference in actual performance, which would make things way more complex.

If you follow the logic of the test, the significant issue is not whether it's really math, but whether it's *perceived* as math by those acting as hiring managers in the test. I think it's reasonable to conclude that it is. Or do you think the conclusion of the test is valid strictly for simple arithmetic - people have a strong unfounded bias that women are worse than men at arithmetic - but not valid for more complex math? Do you really think it's likely people are biased against women when it comes to arithmetic but not to complex math?

It was my mom who taught me my basic math

[Taco Cowboy]

Yes, of all the people in the world, it was my mom who taught me basic math.

Without her, I wouldn't know how to count. I wouldn't know how to add, to subtract, to multiply and to divide.

Of course I did learn more advanced math in the school, but the foundation of my math was laid by my mom.

Thanks, mom !

Re:It was my mom who taught me my basic math

[Anonymous Coward]

Without her, I wouldn't know how to count. I wouldn't know how to add, to subtract, to multiply and to divide.

Amazing how sure you are that school could teach you 'more advanced math' but not simple Arithmetic. Still, lucky you to have a supermom who was the only being with the power to save you from a horrible fate of not EVER knowing how to add, subtract, multiply and divide.

Re:It was my mom who taught me my basic math

[gnick]

For the time being, doing math takes a human. Doing arithmetic takes a calculator. The two are largely dissimilar.

Re:It was my mom who taught me my basic math

[Oligonicella]

That's a long way to go to stretch his accolade to what his mother did for him into a snarky, caustic tirade.

Re:It was my mom who taught me my basic math

[TheSwift]

I had a similar experience.

I was educated at home by my mother who is a civil engineering major while my father, who is also a civil engineer, worked to provide for myself and four siblings who were also home educated.

What I find interesting about this article is that I find the same bias within me, despite being given the most obvious evidence to the contrary - my mother is clearly an intelligent, well-educated woman who is also quite adept at teaching. I think the reason I have this bias is because, despite being the worst damn student in the history of home-education, I honestly have found myself better at mathematics than women I met in college. Even my wife, who has a Bachelor's of Sciences in Nursing struggles with basic (and by basic, I mean things like dimensional analysis - so maybe, semi-basic?) math concepts sometimes. I personally find myself quicker on the draw when it comes to math. My wife is still freakishly smart and the best damn nurse you'll ever find, but math isn't her strong suit.

I'll be the first to accept that research shows that women are just as able to learn math as men are - anecdotally my mother showed me that was true, but I will also point out that the bias probably exists because women simply don't care to learn it even if it is available to be learned. Let's be honest, many women are still stay at home mother's and see no need to learn advanced mathematics. My wife probably didn't care as much to learn math growing up because she just wanted to be a wife and a mother. I think that's OK.

I understand the value in combating the bias from the point of employers who might pass over an otherwise well-qualified woman, but I see another result from debates like this and that is women feeling like it's wrong for them to just want to be a mother. I would argue that no, it's not wrong. There's nothing wrong with a woman not caring to spend time learning something she probably won't use in a job. Education is important, absolutely, but I find that many women still want to live out their maternal instincts and should be allowed to do so without being judged.

Re:It was my mom who taught me my basic math

[TheSwift]

Well, that was a lot of unnecessary rage, but I think I see what you're exploding over. I omitted the word "some" when I wrote "women don't care to learn it even if it is available to be learned..." and you're right, that was legitimately unfair of me. There are many women, perhaps even most, who do not want to just be a wife and a mother. Thank you for bringing the omission to my attention.

My point was that although all women are perfectly capable at studying math in great detail, many/some prefer not to - which is probably why this bias exists.

Human Nature

[rmdingler]

We frequently fall prey to these assumptions made under no particular scientific method. We begin raising our young with lessons disguised as fables.

Handing knowledge down through the years based on personal experience was once, and for many generations, the best way to save information. It is better than no system at all (we're talking pre-widespread literacy), but the risk of passing along stereotypes and prejudices certainly existed.

Re:Human Nature

[DoofusOfDeath]

We frequently fall prey to these assumptions made under no particular scientific method.

Citation of reproducible study needed.

Re:Human Nature

[rmdingler]

Why certainly, otherwise it's merely another unproven assumption.

Re:Human Nature

[DoofusOfDeath]

Is it really needed? Do you have a study to back that up, huh? Huh???

Nope. My claim stands on a turtle.

Don't be so harsh ...

[Taco Cowboy]

I worked as a part time waiter while I was in college. One night I was waiting on a party of over 40 people (5 tables in all) and when I added up the final bill (it was in the '70s and there was no PC-based POS back then) manually (over 80 items in total, including drinks and desserts ) and handed it to the folks, an old guy looked at the bill and scolded me for "not doing it right".

I was right and he was wrong, but, as he was the customer, I couldn't tell him that his math sux, so I did the next best thing - I call the manager and let him add up the total bill.

It came up the same. (I did say I was right).

The moral of this story is ... don't be harsh.

Joe sixpacks don't do much math, and you don't get them to do extra-ordinary level of math without them feeling very sorry for themselves.

Re:Don't be so harsh ...

[axl917]

How is addition an "extra-ordinary level of math" ?

Re:Don't be so harsh ...

[sandytaru]

Have you never heard of bistro-math, so powerful that it can run a spaceship?!

Re:Don't be so harsh ...

[pak9rabid]

She's built like a steakhouse, but handles like a bistro!

uhh

[buddyglass]

Think women can't do math?

Hardly anyone thinks this because there is ample evidence to the contrary. Moreover, the average woman is probably about as good at math as the average man. But when you're hiring in a "mathematical profession" you're not looking at the entire population; you're looking at the set of men and women with relatively high mathematical ability. Within that set, at least in the United States, men outnumber women. This could very well be the result of socialization; I'm not necessarily arguing from physiology. But it's hard to argue with numbers. The ratio of men to women among the set of SAT takers with a perfect math score, after adjusting for the fact that more women than men take the SAT, is 2.5 to 1. So, all else being equal we should expect about 28% of engineers and mathematicians to be women. Interestingly, if you look at the percentage of Math Ph.D.s granted to U.S. citizens (in 2010) women earned exactly 28%. With respect to engineering and computer science, approximately 20% of bachelors degrees (in 2008) were granted to women, so there may be work to be done there. My guess is that this is due to the stereotypical reputations of CS/Engineering (bearded hackers with poor hygiene and huge egos) being less appealing to women than to men.

Re:uhh

[u38cg]

But that's not the question. The question is, is that disparity natural or a result of social forces? More interesting would be a comparison of entry and exit points.

Re:uhh

[buddyglass]

There's isn't ample evidence to the contrary with respect to I.D. So, yeah. If you consider I.D. to be unscientific, e.g. untestable and/or unfalsifiable, then what sort of "evidence to the contrary" could possibly be given? Neither evidence that supports an old earth nor evidence that supports of the evolution of species necessarily contradicts I.D.

When it comes to women in math, most people have probably come into contact with a woman who was more mathematically gifted than they are. Or, at least, who was competent. In high school, at university, on the job, etc. So they have personal, experiential knowledge of the fact that some women, at least, can "do math". Even the most chauvinistic folks I've met don't argue women can't do math. They may argue men are, on average, better at math, or that women shouldn't do math (even when they have the ability to do so), but they rarely go so far as to make a blanket claim that no woman, ever, anywhere, can "do math". Probably because that claim is so trivially disproved.

Re:uhh

[Andrio]

I often here people mention how they're bad at math, didn't do well at math in school, etc. It almost seems like a badge of honor. I hear it said with som pride. And you know what? Most of the time, when I hear it, it's a woman saying it. Men are often embarrassed to acknowledge that they're bad at math.

I don't think women are worse at it than men, at least by innate ability, but they don't seem to value it quite as much.

Re:uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that this is due to the stereotypical reputations of CS/Engineering (bearded hackers with poor hygiene and huge egos) being less appealing to women than to men.

You also have to take into account the much lower portion of the female population which is capable of growing a good beard. They may be self-selecting out of this profession due to a lack of capability in this area.

Re:uhh

[CastrTroy]

What's interesting is that if you talk about running or weight lifting, we've pretty much come to the conclusion that men are better simply because they are men, and it has nothing to do with socialization. We also pretty much know that certain races are better at sprinting (in general, not in every individual case) and it's simply by nature, and nothing to do with socialization or upbringing. However, if you start to talk about anything intellectual, it's quite taboo to say that it might be nature that is causing such large disparities between races or genders.

Re:uhh

[geekoid]

" probably about as good at math as the average man. "
probably? there is the stinking bias again.
When a girl has it implied that she may not be as good as a boy at math, it's has a long standing effect in that they will start to avoid it, so naturally their SAT scores are lower. And the bias in colleges is even greater the grade school.

"My guess is that this is due to the stereotypical reputations of CS/Engineering"
tat streotype died over a decade ago.

Re:uhh

[serviscope_minor]

What's interesting is that if you talk about running or weight lifting, we've pretty much come to the conclusion that men are better simply because they are men, and it has nothing to do with socialization.

Yep. The thing is, our understanding of anatomy and physiology is waaaaaaay ahead of our understanding of the brain. It's particularly fun when people try to justify a massive simlpification with some trite explanation based on something "evolutionary" like women being gatherers and men being hunters or some other such nonsense.

But also, socialisation does have a HUGE HUGE effect on physical activities, and this is well known. Prowess in sports is massively regional and based entirely on local social issues. The American national cricket team absoloutely sucks, for instance, yet they usually dominate the olympic medals table.

Re:uhh

[Evtim]

There is a speculation that I find compelling - men, being cheaper than women in evolutionary sense means that it is "safer" to experiment with men. Thus, you will find more men than women at the edges of virtually every distribution. As we know extreme ability in something usually comes with a cost [I have never heard about evolutionary solution that is completely "good" or "bad"] Therefore there are more genius level maths men, but also more morons men [the other end of the distribution].

It makes sense to me [again, I caution this is speculation, not fact or theory]

Re:uhh

[AdamWill]

What this study goes quite a long way to showing is that people tend to think women are worse than men *even at very basic arithmetical tasks which we already know both sexes are in fact equally good at*. The implication being that if the bias extends that far, it seems much more likely it's not actually based on 'inconvenient truths' about real performance.

Re:uhh

[buddyglass]

What's interesting is that if you talk about running or weight lifting...

Kind of apples and oranges. Physical activities are much more easily measured, and there the sex differences are apparent even among average individuals as opposed to only at the margins. Arguing that men have (on average) more upper body strength than women because of socialization is like arguing men are taller (on average) because of socialization. It's not plausible. It's entirely plausible, though, that women's math performance is impacted by socialization. My personal opinion is that socialization doesn't explain the entirety of the gap, but it's certainly not as obvious as the physiological basis for strength and speed.

Some women are _very_ bad

[Anonymous Coward]

My ex-girlfriend was once helped through a math problem by her teacher, and they figured out that the solution was the half of x, so the teacher told her to write that down.

She wrote down '/'.

Re:Some women are _very_ bad

[martinQblank]

My ex-girlfriend was once helped through a math problem by her teacher, and they figured out that the solution was the half of x, so the teacher told her to write that down.

She wrote down '/'.

Heh - that's funny. Clearly the answer was '\'.

GIGO

[Anonymous Coward]

Your skill is based on your education and how much effort you put into it. I think the unconscious bias is more of a social thing. I don't think women have any less capacity for intellect, but I do think there is a large group of females out there who would rather post about drama and "OMG my new shoes" on facebook rather than focus on science and self improvement. It isn't that they can't. It's that society has molded a lot of them this way, and the stereotypes emerge.

More broad than just maths

[captainpanic]

Men just don't trust that women can do something important right. This includes math problems, but also meeting an important deadline, hiring important people, or taking decisions.

I know this sounds like a troll post, but I am serious. The gender gap is not just a problem with maths, or because women get pregnant and care for a baby for several months. It is much broader, and women are indeed held back by men, because men prefer to stay in control in certain cases.

However, I think we should approach it from another perspective: Those in charge (in a company, government) don't trust many people to take important decisions or to do any calculations right. However, women are overrepresented in the group of people who are not trusted with these tasks, but men are present in that group too.

In the USA

[Ateocinico]

In Venezuela women are perceived as better in math and sciences. And usually they are.

Re:In the USA

[operagost]

Are they better at the social sciences? Because the dudes you have in charge down there are total idiots.

Re:In the USA

[misexistentialist]

Does Venezuela measure up to other countries in those fields, or did you just lower the standard?

Re:In the USA

[93 Escort Wagon]

Mod points, mod points... My kingdom for mod points!

Re:In the USA

[ZFox]

In Venezuela women are perceived as better in math and sciences.

Being perceived as an intelligent male in a populist country often carries a shorter life expectancy.

Re:In the USA

[Kuberz]

SS or it didn't happen. And they usually are? What are you basing this off of? It's like if you have guy A and he can benchpress 200lbs, then you go out and find a chic that can bench press 210lbs and call her chic B. Then you run your experiment and come to the conclusion chics are physically stronger than dudes. Well sorry to burst your extremely large bubble (one that you've apparently been living in for your whole life, so make that an extra large apology as well), but men are inherently stronger than women. It's called testosterone. Now as far as mathematics are concerned, the facts point to men having an ADVANTAGE vs women. Just like in weightlifting. But instead of testosterone giving men the advantage in this area, its the way male brains are wired. You see, women have brains that contain many more connections between the right and left hemisphere. Where men brains have many more connection between the front and the back. This gives women a greater advantage at intuitive and emotional thinking, as well as a more advantageous memory. You can look all this up if you want, Google has a search engine. I know this is all jumbled, but I'm basically getting at, yes men have an ADVANTAGE in mathematics. Not inherently better, an advantage.

Test Also Measures Confidence

[retroworks]

In my experience, being a doofus does not significantly decrease mens self confidence. Employers tend to hire confidence, women tend to marry confidence. Any measure of "perceived ability" is measuring confidence. Male birds tend to puff their feathers out, and also to self report their superiority to mates, and if we can translate bird, no doubt the male peacocks report they are better at math.

Re:Test Also Measures Confidence

[martas]

I was just thinking that. Perhaps part of the reason for the perceived difference in mathematical ability is that women are more willing to be honest about not understanding something? And being a PhD student in a highly mathematical field, let me assure you, most of the time none of us know what the fuck is going on, so pretending would make a big difference...

Re:Test Also Measures Confidence

[AdamWill]

RTFA: this specific factor is mentioned, and was compensated for by giving different 'hiring managers' different levels of information about the applicant. Some got just a picture of the applicant. Some got a self-assessment by the applicant of how they thought they'd do on the test (and the authors note that, indeed, men tended to give over-optimistic self-assessments, and women over-pessimistic ones). Some got the applicants' actual results.

The bias persisted in every case, it appears.

One bias frequently overlooked

[MikeRT]

In the rush to kumbaya and make it out to be "the sisterhood versus the patriarchy," a lot of women and male feminists don't notice that there is a sizeable contingent of technically qualified women who by and large have little respect for most women. I saw this in college with the women who took CS seriously feeling like they had to work twice as hard because half of the girls were getting by, in their minds by "flipping their skirts and smiling the guys" to get them to do their work for them. A good friend of mine who was a mechanical engineering major observed the same thing in his department at a different university. In fact, our oldest female professor was notorious for being ruthless on the girls because she literally wanted to drive out any girl who had in her mind that women in CS should be allowed to get by in any fashion that even resembled "advancing on their backs."

So if anything, I would say be careful about letting female engineers interview other potential candidates unless they are known to be genuinely fair-minded. You very well may find that it's actually the women, not the men, who are discriminating.

Re:One bias frequently overlooked

[Hardhead_7]

The thing about those kind of stereotypes is, just as TFA mentioned, women absorb them too. "Women are bad at math." "Women are catty with each other." And so on. When a woman buys into them, yet don't she doesn't see herself this way, she may consciously or unconsciously seeks to set herself apart and say "I'm not like other women!"

Then they become the person that a sexist guy cites as his "female friend" that backs up his sexist theories that get perpetuated to the next generation.

Re:One bias frequently overlooked

[coolsnowmen]

I think what he's getting at is that women can be worse than men at judging other women. Effectively being MORE sexist in some effort to make sure only women who will make her proud can pass muster.

Personally, I'm [sub-consciously] nicer to pretty girls above a certain intelligence and meaner to pretty girls below a certain intelligence and have to consciously correct for it in the work place.

Re:One bias frequently overlooked

[Anonymous Coward]

A young man sits down at a bar, orders a glass of the strongest stuff they have. The old man next to him notices and asks if something is wrong. "I just don't understand women," he says, "they tell me one thing, expect me to do the opposite, and then just sulk around when I try to ask what I did wrong." The old man sits quietly for a few seconds then replies, "I've been around longer than you, and I don't understand women either. But I have noticed that women do understand women, and they hate each other. Maybe we're better off not understanding."

Re:One bias frequently overlooked

[akirapill]

As a male feminist ("kumbaya!"), I agree with you about women often being the roadblock to other women's success (example: http://science.slashdot.org/st...), but I think it only reinforces my viewpoint about the pervasiveness of the patriarchy. Our society makes women feel that they have to compete with each other as opposed to competing with men. I think this is due to the real or perceived notion that there are only so many 'slots' available to women especially in technical fields, and the real or perceived idea that non-technical qualities (attractiveness, submissiveness) are unfairly considered when judging women moreso than men. That's something that must fundamentally change before we start seeing economic equality, and its something men and women must work equally hard to fix.

Re:One bias frequently overlooked

[TC Wilcox]

I would say be careful about letting female engineers interview other potential candidates unless they are known to be genuinely fair-minded. You very well may find that it's actually the women, not the men, who are discriminating.

I would be careful about generalizing here. Some women probably discriminate against other women. Some men probably do the same thing. When you paint with too broad a brush you run the risk of fueling "sisterhood versus the patriarchy" arguments.

Re:One bias frequently overlooked

[Creepy]

I personally have little tolerance for stupidity, probably why I got into tech in the first place. I may have a better initial reaction to a pretty girl, but if she is a stereotypical dumb blonde, I quickly start talking down to her and say things like "in layman speak" - translation "I've seen smarter squirrels, so I'm going to really dumb this down for you, you petulant (because they often are) fool."

Fortunately, most blondes I knew in school were smart and completely against stereotype. I didn't have any girls in my college math courses (calc II-VI, and seriously, zero), but in pre-calc and calc my high school (accelerated math) study partner was Megan, a gorgeous, athletic blonde (she was all state in track) with a pretty nice rack to boot. Yeah, objectification there, but when I think of someone that had everything (brains and looks), I think of her. Unfortunately, she dated and mated with a dumb jock I intensely disliked and spurted out some kids right after high school graduation, so I doubt she went to college or got a job using her brains, which is unfortunate. That dumb jock did go to college (my college, which is how I know) on a football scholarship and failed out (rumors are with a 0.0 GPA, though that is possibly just rumors my friends started). I never saw or heard from either of them after that year, not that I've made any effort to look them up.

Re:One bias frequently overlooked

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I saw this in college with the women who took CS seriously feeling like they had to work twice as hard because half of the girls were getting by, in their minds by "flipping their skirts and smiling the guys" to get them to do their work for them.

How would this even work? Most Engineering degrees are based principally on examinations. You can't smile your way out of solving a differential equation on paper.

Re:One bias frequently overlooked

[akirapill]

No, you're wrong. He said that a certain ('the oldest') professor was especially harsh on girls because she wanted to 'drive out' the supposed women "cruising through on their backs". He didn't say that these women actually exist. Then he said 'careful about letting female engineers interview other potential candidates unless they are known to be genuinely fair-minded', implying that this was not a fair-minded assessment, followed by describing what the professor was doing as 'discriminating'. And i mean honestly - have you ever seen someone 'cruising through on their back' in this industry? like ever? I've seen high-performing women get illegally fired by male bosses for getting pregnant, but never someone actually sleeping their way into any kind of professional position in tech.

Re:One bias frequently overlooked

[akirapill]

It might surprise you that I'm not a fan of the term 'misogyny' or the coopting of the word 'hate' to mean 'bigotry and stuff' (although I support 'hate crime' laws, just wish they were called something else). As for 'patriarchy', sorry bro but men still hold the cards politically, socially, and economically. It's not really relevant who's 'fault' that is - the word just describes the power imbalance, and in this case we're talking specifically about when that power balance is NOT men's fault. But yeah, in general i agree that 'buzzwords from the feminist dictionary' are lame. As for 'all heterosexual sex is rape/ all men are rapists', that's a very outdated viewpoint in feminism that was fringe even when it was the most popular in the 80s. The 3rd wave feminism/intersectionality that's mainstream in feminism now really addresses how ridiculous the black/white feminism from that bygone era was, and looks at things like male-on-male rape, the role racism plays in sexual assault cases, and having respect for women who choose to take on traditionally female roles (or don't).

Re:One bias frequently overlooked

[ADRA]

That said, there were a few (large percentage of the few ladies in the program) 'skirt flippers' in my classes going through my CS program, so I'd say they aren't totally unjustified in assuming that some ladies are taking advantage of their minority status. It's -possible- that they don't want their tribe looking bad by having a lot of fat skimming loafers ruining the program for the rest of them. You could say that about a lot of tribes all the same.

Lawrence Summers, save me!

[argStyopa]

I could be that PERHAPS there IS a difference in some math skill between males and females?

I know it's heinously non-politically-correct to suggest that the sorts of hormonal variations that developmentally result in gross anatomical changes might actually have an impact on the subtle chemistry of brain development as well...we're perfectly willing to recognize that (speaking broadly) women are in fact better at multitasking or that men are better at 3d shape understanding. Is it impossible that there isn't actually some real difference in, say, instinctual math that vanishes in a focused, testing setting?

I'm 46; I've found over my life that often these sorts of 'common perceptions' commonly HAVE a kernel of truth in them. Often misapplied, misunderstood, or blown out of proportion, but nevertheless a root in fact.

I will say that I've far more often seen women spend 15 minutes trying to precisely divide a dinner tab more precisely than men, who'll tend instead to just throw down roughly their share plus some, even if that results in the wait staff getting a huge tip. I know that's not specifically a math skill, but it's one of those real-world anecdotes that feed this perception.

Re:Lawrence Summers, save me!

[u38cg]

Yeah, no-one is really arguing that these kind of differences cannot exist. The argument is, bring data. If you think there's a difference, go out and prove it.

Re:Lawrence Summers, save me!

[sandytaru]

Is it possible? Yes, anything is. But it's also not set in stone. While everyone assumes that men are better at spacial reasoning than women, I yawned my way through every spacial reasoning test they could throw at me when I was a kid and was declared gifted in spacial analysis, despite being female. (Probably why I enjoy hanging out in a relational database as an adult.) When we say "men are better at X" and "women are better at Y" it's all about averages.

Re:Lawrence Summers, save me!

[PvtVoid]

I know it's heinously non-politically-correct to suggest ...

Lost me right there.

I've found over my life that as soon as somebody starts their argument by complaining about "political correctness", it's a virtual certainty that the remainder of their argument is going to be a lame attempt to rationalize an odious bias. It's the politically correct way to start an argument by saying I'm not an X, but...

Re:Lawrence Summers, save me!

[AmiMoJo]

Studies have not been able to find any significant differences between genders, or for that matter races. Culture is the overriding factor, with girls tending to do better than boys at school due to their attitude more than anything else. We are talking averages here of course, I'm sure everyone knows of examples that go against the general trend.

Re:Lawrence Summers, save me!

[AdamWill]

"I could be that PERHAPS there IS a difference in some math skill between males and females?"

The test under discussion was specifically designed to use a 'mathematical' task that it is already established women and men perform equally well at. As the article states.

Re:Lawrence Summers, save me!

[Dixie_Flatline]

The flat Earth hypothesis has a 'kernel' of truth in it as well. The Earth looks flat from our perspective. It's just that when you decide to look at it with a more analytical eye things start to break down.

The kernel of truth that you're seeing is one that we have to acknowledge: men and women have the opinion that women aren't as good at math, and over the course of history, it's abundantly clear that fewer women have been stand-out mathematicians than men.

The *actual* question is whether or not this is down to biology or societal conditioning. I'm on the side of societal conditioning at this point. It seems unlikely to me that evolution would select for women that aren't as good as math as men in a biological sense, or conversely, that only men would benefit from being better at math (or the prehistoric math analogue) and that would be a characteristic that is located only on the Y chromosome, or is enhanced by testosterone and muted by oestrogen.

Meanwhile, our species has had a long history of systematic and institutional sexism since we became agrarian. Women have only been openly welcome in Universities for less than 100 years, and they haven't even always been allowed to study 'male' subjects like science and engineering. It seems MUCH more likely that conditioning is a greater part of the equation than we've given it credit for until recently.

Re:Lawrence Summers, save me!

[slimjim8094]

Well put, especially because all this is really about is averages.

The GP's post title is interesting - he refers to the ex-president of Harvard who lost his job (in part) due to comments - that were pretty completely misrepresented - about the aptitude of women in mathematics and science. His basic point - which isn't particularly controversial - is that men tend to have a greater standard deviation for many characteristics than women do, although they tend to have approximately the same averages. This wider bell curve would obviously lead to more men at the highest levels - but also at the lowest. Both of these are well supported observations (especially the low half, which is less controversial - go figure) and are also reasonable conclusions from a genetic standpoint - women have two X chromosomes, which moderate each other, while men have only one (this is why e.g., color blindness are almost exclusively male afflictions) - as well as an evolutionary standpoint (a population-exceptional male can have dramatically more successful offspring than an average male, but a population-exceptional female will have approximately the same number, although more fit, as an average female).

Stereotypes are all about averages, and the reason they've so pervasive is that they're how our brains work. We need to have a mental model of everything around us, so we don't spend 10 minutes trying to understand an apple every time we see one. We couldn't function if we weren't able to say "this is an apple, it acts like the other apples I've experienced" and put it in that bucket.

The problem doesn't even arise when we do that with people - to an extent. We have a stereotype of doctors as intelligent and knowledgeable about our health, for instance, that's usually quite helpful if we're a patient. No, the problem comes when we don't remember that stereotypes are just personal averages, and that a specific individual may not fit the model we have, combined with trying too hard to fit people into buckets when the evidence doesn't fit. The other problem is not discarding a bucket when essentially nobody fits it (e.g., common racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, etc - all of which persist only because the bigot in question has spent their life cherry-picking and exaggerating interactions).

(Also, back on topic, women aren't any worse at spatial reasoning, they just - on average - take slightly longer to do it)

It's because women's clothes lack pockets

[sandbagger]

If their clothes had pockets, they could carry money on their persons and get more counting practice in.

Pockets. Think about it.

Re:It's because women's clothes lack pockets

[Anonymous Coward]

If their clothes had pockets, they could carry money on their persons and get more counting practice in.

Pockets. Think about it.

So in nude communities, the women will be better at math?

Re:It's because women's clothes lack pockets

[sandytaru]

I know this is a joke, but there is a huge amount of truth in this as well. The worst are the FAKE pockets. Why, why do they bother with going through this elaborate pocket charade?

Re:It's because women's clothes lack pockets

[Oligonicella]

No, the men will be just as poor at it as they are.

It's just cause they aren't runway ready

[Trax3001BBS]

If their not, they're naturally bad at most everything. Science: It's a Girl Thing ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Put out by "Women in research and innovation"; saying if you ain't hot, how you gonna be good?

Re:It's just cause they aren't runway ready

[CrimsonAvenger]

If their not, they're naturally bad at most everything.

And men are naturally bad at spelling?

Almost certainly "the result of socialization"

[Dr. Manhattan]

Compare with women and chess.

The model revealed that the greater proportion of male chess players accounts for a whopping 96% of the difference in ability between the two genders at the highest level of play. If more women took up chess, you’d see that difference close substantially. ... So why are there so few female chess grandmasters? Because fewer women play chess. It’s that simple. This overlooked fact accounts for so much of the observable differences that other possible explanations, be they biological, cultural or environmental, are just fighting for scraps at the table.

Re:Almost certainly "the result of socialization"

[buddyglass]

Yes, but more women take the SAT than men, and yet the ratio of perfect math scores is 2:1 in favor of the men or 2.5:1 after adjusting for the fact that more women taken the test. Something's going on there. Maybe it's entirely socialization; I'm not discounting that possibility. But it's not that women are opting out of taking the SAT. It's also worth noting that the math on the SAT is not particularly advanced. So it's not that women's scores are suffering because they opt out of taking more advanced math classes in high school. That might be the case if we were talking about AP Calculus exam results, but IIRC the SAT only goes up to basic algebra and geometry, classes every student (usually) has to take in order to graduate.

Re:Almost certainly "the result of socialization"

[Dr. Manhattan]

Yes, but more women take the SAT than men, and yet the ratio of perfect math scores is 2:1 in favor of the men or 2.5:1 after adjusting for the fact that more women taken the test.

Performance in the SAT is not uncorrelated with effort put forth in the math classes prior to the test. That's a variable that's strongly influenced by socialization.

Given the example of things like chess, it would seem that socialization should probably be the default explanation until and unless evidence of other explanations comes to light.

Re:Almost certainly "the result of socialization"

[Creepy]

By the time women take the SAT, they've been culturally pushed away from math and science; for instance, I see this with my brother's girl, who HATES math with a passion just like her mom, and she is 8. If you're culturally indoctrinated by 8, there isn't much hope. OTOH, there is hope for one of my nieces, who is one of the top ranked girls in her state for math (in fact, I think she was the top ranked girl, but was behind a couple of boys overall) and has a geneticist mom. Unfortunately, I know far too many of the former mom/daughter pairs and too few of the latter.

Re:Almost certainly "the result of socialization"

[buddyglass]

It's a tough thing to analyze since the physiological explanation could coexist (and possibly give rise to) the socialization explanation. Here's another paper that specifically looks at "high-end" SAT/ACT scorers among students who took the test in 7th grade. While the male/female ratio among those who scores 700+ on the math section declined (significantly) over time, it has settled at an approximately 4:1 level. Similar results for the ACT. If socialization is the primary cause then its fairly extreme and its happening fairly early.

Re:Almost certainly "the result of socialization"

[buddyglass]

Does she hate math because she was indoctrinated or because she finds it frustrating and difficult? Or a combination of the two? Its pretty reasonable for a kid to "hate" a subject he or she finds particularly difficult.

Re:Almost certainly "the result of socialization"

[buddyglass]

This researcher found statistically significant differences between boys and girls at the high-end of mathematical ability as early as Kindergarten. So we're talking about 5-6 year-olds. Of course this is just one paper and (for all I know) it's been refuted elsewhere in the literature.

Re:Almost certainly "the result of socialization"

[AK Marc]

When the girl was in 1st grade, she was told by Mom "I don't like math, go ask your dad". It wasn't a gender thing at first, but children attribute such things to gender. It doesn't hurt when most of the other girls in the same class hear the same thing. And no, I'm not the OP, I've just seen the same before.

Obviously.

[meglon]

That's because men keep telling women that 4 inches is actually 8 inches.

Re:Obviously.

[meglon]

To the person who modded this "overrated" - it begs the response "That's what she said!"

Re:Obviously.

[RendonWI]

I've taught my wife that "all night long" is around 2 minutes.

Re:Obviously.

[meglon]

+1

Nurse to coworker: "Can you do math?"

[grep -v '.*' *]

True story. I was at the doctors office yesterday. The female nurse assistant was getting blood pressure, weight, and height. 6" 7'.

"Hey Julie, can you do math?" she called to the receptionist.

I looked up at her. She repeated her question. I interjected "Huh?"

"Oh, well I need your height in inches." "Well it's 12 times 6 and add 7." "I know, but I don't do math."

"OK then, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, that's 5 feet, and one more makes 72, and then add 7."

She looked at me like I had two heads. Well I do, but you know what I mean.

"So that'd be seventy-nine, right?" She looked at me, I THINK she then looked at her friend for confirmation, and then wrote it down and said, "I never liked math in school. I even managed somehow to skip some of the mandatory classes." "I can tell", I thought.

I just shook my head, wondering if she was a nurse or an assistant. Or maybe an assistant's assistant.

Maybe she was new, maybe she was a temp, maybe it was just really a bad day. But I've never had someone who was so seemingly ?dumb? as she was. But she wasn't dumb, she just "didn't do math".

I'm not a PhD at all or theoretical physicist or anything, but I just can't imagine. "I don't do math" is just like "I don't do words" to me. I couldn't imagine life without either of them.

Re:Nurse to coworker: "Can you do math?"

[operagost]

It's called "lazy".

Re:Nurse to coworker: "Can you do math?"

[AmiMoJo]

Well, it's unlikely but some people are genuinely unable to do some kinds of maths. Numerical dyslexia, for example, makes some types of problems very hard. In her case though it is hard to see why she wouldn't just carry a $1 calculator to avoid having to ask every time.

Actually I'm kinda surprised your medical people don't use metric, but that's another debate.

Re:Nurse to coworker: "Can you do math?"

[argStyopa]

My daughter is in AP Calc in high school, has a 4.0 GPA, and scored 34 on the math portion of the ACT.

Yet we were in a store with a 10% discount, she held up a $50 item and said "so how much would this be?". /facepalm.

Sometimes, if you're pretty, it's easier just to not think.

Re:Nurse to coworker: "Can you do math?"

[serviscope_minor]

Sometimes, if you're pretty, it's easier just to not think.

If you believe that you have a very skewed vision of the world. Allow me to enlighten you:

Sometimes, it's just easier not to think.

Or have you never met an ugly or average looking dumbass?

Re:Nurse to coworker: "Can you do math?"

[grep -v '.*' *]

She might be smarter than you think!

You'd up and just tell her the price, or ask her to figure it out. And you'd be WRONG either way.

The correct way is to ask the authoritative cashier what the price is. No surprise if it's what you expected. You'll complain if it's higher. But if its lower....would you? (Ethics.)

And besides: maybe she didn't realize the sale, maybe she forgot or thought that not everything was covered, or maybe she really was just being stupid. Haven't you ever done something absolutely asinine when you absolutely know better a few seconds/minutes later?


Of course the game is rigged. But you can't win if you don't play.
--- Lazarus Long

Re:Nurse to coworker: "Can you do math?"

[DocSavage64109]

This is just a nitpick on your nitpick, but you wrote 6" 7' which would read as 6 inches, seven foot. You probably meant 6' 7". Ref: http://practicaltypography.com/foot-and-inch-marks.html

Re:Nurse to coworker: "Can you do math?"

[mdielmann]

The complete implied sentence is, "Sometimes, it's easier just to not think if you're pretty than it is if you're not pretty." It doesn't mean you can't be ugly and not think, just that there will be more difficulties than if you're pretty and don't think.

Re:Nurse to coworker: "Can you do math?"

[volmtech]

My experience. I have four children, one has a PhD, one a law degree, one with high grades in college, and one who whips out her smartphone if you ask her what 5 times 7 is. I spent every night for a year helping her do her math homework so she could graduate high school, tears, lots of tears. She can do words and will pull up a spreadsheet on her laptop if she needs to do anything with numbers. She became a hairdresser and is very happy.

Not how I remember it

[slapout]

Growing up I always remember girls being better at math.

Re:Not how I remember it

[sandytaru]

The general understanding is that girls are better behaved in school and more likely to pay attention in class, do their homework, etc. Yet at some point, the guys "naturally" overtake them once they start paying attention, usually in high school.

All my mom knows how to do is multiply...

[Dareth]

All my mom knows how to do is multiply...but that is why I have seven siblings.

Re:All my mom knows how to do is multiply...

[antdude]

Only seven/7? ;)

Re:All my mom knows how to do is multiply...

[styrotech]

I was going to complain that seven is a prime number, but then I realised that the number in question was actually eight. Doh - carry on...

arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you do learn math by rote memorization.

No, you learn arithmetic by rote memorization.

Arithmetic is to math roughly as learning to use a pencil to write letters is to literature: it is the objects that are used to do math. You can't write if you don't know the difference between a, b, and c; but knowing how to write legible a, b, and c is not "writing."

Those of us who were interested in math from the beginning were training it all the time by playing around with numbers or geometrical objects, which is just rote memorization with spices on top....

Indeed. You have to be comfortable with the basic objects you're using before you can have fun using them as building blocks.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[Sique]

No, not just arithmetic, you also learn algebra by rote memorization and constant exercise. With time this helps you to spot regularities and later you are able to see possible solutions in complex mathematical problems.

There are experiments about what helps pupils best to get better with mathematics, and it has been shown that drill and constant exercise is the most effective way, even for complexer mathematical problems.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[gIobaljustin]

There are experiments about what helps pupils best to get better with mathematics, and it has been shown that drill and constant exercise is the most effective way, even for complexer mathematical problems.

That's a great way to train drones who don't understand the how & why, but not a great way to make people truly understand mathematics. I do what I do because I love it, and any facts I memorize I memorize because I happen to see them often, not because forced me to sit around and work out pointless problems. That sort of thinking is why math education is so abysmal.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[jbmartin6]

I disagree. Well, you are likely correct that there are ways to improve the teaching of math. But even people who aren't drones need to train themselves in the basics, it is only when the lower level stuff comes without thought that the higher level stuff becomes more accessible. And the only way to make the foundation second nature is practice. Someone who enjoys it has an advantage since they are more likely to get enough practice. It is the same in most endeavors, for instance sports. I've been mountain biking for years, I love it, but it was only after building the body memory for the basics like balance, braking, cornering, etc. that the higher level stuff like jumping became possible.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[tsqr]

No, not just arithmetic, you also learn algebra by rote memorization and constant exercise. With time this helps you to spot regularities and later you are able to see possible solutions in complex mathematical problems.

There are experiments about what helps pupils best to get better with mathematics, and it has been shown that drill and constant exercise is the most effective way, even for complexer mathematical problems.

Rote memorization is also an effective way to learn the rules of grammar. More people should try it.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[gIobaljustin]

Maybe I incorrectly assumed he was talking about the same kind of rote memorization I was thinking of. When I talk about that, I'm saying that they force pointless repetition on people, have people memorize meaningless facts, and skip the process of trying to get people to understand how and why it all works to begin with. What I'm not saying is that you never need to retain any information.

But really, attempting to understand how and why it all works gives you a lot of practice all by itself, from my experience.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[SomeoneFromBelgium]

There are experiments about what helps pupils best to get better with mathematics, and it has been shown that drill and constant exercise is the most effective way, even for complexer mathematical problems.

That's a great way to train drones who don't understand the how & why

You assume that by drilling and training only the memory is trained. This is not so. If students learn something for the first time they tend to use their memory mostly without much understanding. Only through training, execises they learn to use the concepts behind it and find out about the subtle problems behind it. And only through drilling can they archieve the necessary level needed to get to these subtle cases. You have to get them to 'play' with it.

The result is that those who have been well trained retain their knowlege much better than those who just memorised everything and switched to the next level.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[gIobaljustin]

If students learn something for the first time they tend to use their memory mostly without much understanding.

Which is part of the problem.

Only through training, execises they learn to use the concepts behind it and find out about the subtle problems behind it.

One thing I hate is when people tell me how I learn and force me to do repetitive assignments that test only for memorization and do nothing to bolster one's understanding of the material, which is the sort of thing I was talking about. I had to deal with that garbage too much in the past, and never bothered to do any of the assignments.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[AthanasiusKircher]

One thing I hate is when people tell me how I learn and force me to do repetitive assignments that test only for memorization and do nothing to bolster one's understanding of the material, which is the sort of thing I was talking about. I had to deal with that garbage too much in the past, and never bothered to do any of the assignments.

A few points: (1) A well-structured set of problems in a basic math textbook is often intended to gradually allow students to work through various difficulties. The first few problems start with some new idea or skill, then a few more introduce some complications and special cases, then the next few combine it with previous knowledge and skills, and finally we arrive at greater fluency in using the new material. I, probably like you, never needed that many exercises to figure things out. I probably could have done 10% of the problems assigned, and I still would have absorbed the new material. But as someone who has actually taught high-school math, I can also tell you that you and I are NOT the norm. I tried not to assign too many repetitious problems, too. But many students need to work through at least some of this build-up of skills when incorporating a new idea into existing knowledge.

(2) Even for cases where there is more-or-less repetition to learn skills, it is sometimes useful to learn skills. This is different from memorizing facts (though with really basic arithmetic, there is a need for actual memorization too). Basic math is often about internalizing algorithms, to give you tools to be able to higher math. If you don't internalize these algorithms, higher math will become increasingly difficult to follow and understand.

(3) Also, sometimes the algorithm IS the goal. For >99% of people in the world, math is only useful as a tool, not some sort of higher-level "play in an abstract world and have cool insights" kind of thing. They need to be able to do basic manipulation of numbers and symbols to solve very particular types of problems -- with real-world applications. That should be the focus in math education for those not actually going on into higher math -- no need to do all sorts of wacky advanced algebra or memorize stupid facts about geometry in high school... let's teach students how to solve real world problems, and make sure they practice those skills to internalize them.

It sounds like abstract ideas came quickly to you. They came quickly to me as well. But that's not true for many students. Part of the problem is our curriculum structure, which seems to assume all students past middle-school math should be headed toward higher math, instead of focusing on applications and skills that could be useful. But part of the issue is that many students need significantly more repetition to get things, or they need a gradual build-up in difficulty when dealing with a new idea.

It's not always "garbage."

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[gIobaljustin]

But as someone who has actually taught high-school math, I can also tell you that you and I are NOT the norm.

That's another, but different, problem. Schools are one-size-fits-all environments, and do little to mitigate that problem ("advanced" classes don't really solve anything).

(3) Also, sometimes the algorithm IS the goal. For >99% of people in the world, math is only useful as a tool

That mentality is the problem. That's why rote memorization and mindless repetition are used so often.

But part of the issue is that many students need significantly more repetition to get things

I disagree, because they're *not* getting them. They're just memorizing information. I honestly don't believe it's necessary or effective to have a student do the same thing over and over again in order to get them to understand something; I think it's misleading, in fact.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[david_thornley]

You almost certainly went through a good deal of rote learning, but at a young age so you don't remember it well. I was able to count to ten at eighteen months, which is quite early, and that's basically rote learning.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[gIobaljustin]

My position is not that rote memorization is bad 100% of the time; more like 99% of the time. I may have been counting, but I never did bother memorizing multiplication tables.

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[AthanasiusKircher]

But part of the issue is that many students need significantly more repetition to get things

I disagree, because they're *not* getting them. They're just memorizing information. I honestly don't believe it's necessary or effective to have a student do the same thing over and over again in order to get them to understand something; I think it's misleading, in fact.

Do you have kids? If not, have you ever been around a small child? How the heck do you think most people learn to talk, to walk, to read, etc.? Sorry, but repetition is essential for any skill acquisition. Toddlers often learn to read by reading the exact same words in the exact same books dozens or even hundreds of times. Generally, it's a better idea to keep introducing the same word many times in multiple contexts, but repetition is essential -- and in the process, generalized skills acquisition happens. Before you know it, kids begin to sound out related words with similar weird spellings, etc.

I'll grant you that many mathematics textbooks and many teachers focus too much on stuff that's too repetitive, rather than making use of more variety in problems.

And even though you dismissed my concern about how you and I absorb things quickly as a "different" problem, it's not. Some toddlers are smarter than others and have greater abilities at abstraction -- they can be exposed to a particular idea or thing just a few times, and they immediately get it. Others have to do things dozens or hundreds of times to acquire the same skill.

You happen to be in the small subset of people who "get" things quickly. Congratulations. But thinking that repetition isn't an essential part of the learning process for the vast majority of people is, frankly, a bit delusional. There are all sorts of tricks that good teachers have employed for thousands of years to make that repetition more interesting or enjoyable for kids, but it's the main way most kids acquire actual skills.

(3) Also, sometimes the algorithm IS the goal. For >99% of people in the world, math is only useful as a tool

That mentality is the problem. That's why rote memorization and mindless repetition are used so often.

Look, have fun enjoying the advanced world of math for yourself. It's fun to play in; it really is. But the vast majority of people in the world simply lack the cognitive skills or discipline or interest to get to that level... and that is NOT some great failing in the educational system. It's just accepting the fact that people are different, have different skills, and have different interests.

Believe it or not, as a teacher I spent a great deal of time doing the very things you seem to value. I worked together with a couple other teachers to do a complete redesign of the intro algebra curriculum in a school district which would use lots of interesting exploratory activities, multimedia materials, etc. to get away from "traditional" approaches to math. I also taught "conceptual physics" courses to high school kids for a few years, designing open-ended exploratory experiments with very little intense math or drilling in traditional "problems."

But guess what -- these courses were deliberately designed for the 80-90% of kids who actually didn't need facility in math or algebra or mathematical physics. They would never use it in their lives, so spending time doing the algorithms would be stupid and a waste of their time. Instead, kids might go on after doing a "conceptual algebra" course to take a general math elective (rather than algebra II or whatever), which would in fact involve a lot of fairly repetitive scenarios to prepare them for math usage in the real world -- e.g., designing a budget, evaluating loan and mortgage terms, calculating savings and investment returns, etc. Those sorts of problems do actually require a certain kind of "algorithmic literacy" and fluency in certa

Re:arithmetic is not math [Re:In my experience]

[gIobaljustin]

Do you have kids? If not, have you ever been around a small child? How the heck do you think most people learn to talk, to walk, to read, etc.?

You seem to be interpreting my comments as if I'm saying that you should never retain any information or engage in some repetition; that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm saying it shouldn't happen 99% of the time, because it damages kids' educations.

But thinking that repetition isn't an essential part of the learning process for the vast majority of people is, frankly, a bit delusional.

It's not delusional for anything even remotely advanced, because at that point, they're not truly learning anything; they're just memorizing information without understanding it. The process of attempting to understand the hows and whys will give them practice to begin with.

There are all sorts of tricks that good teachers have employed for thousands of years to make that repetition more interesting or enjoyable for kids, but it's the main way most kids acquire actual skills.

You talk of "skills," while I talk of real education and understanding. That this sort of technique (rote memorization over understanding) has been employed for thousands of years really shows; it's archaic.

Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, the article is just perpetuating sexist nonsense IMHO.

Mothers (generally) run basic day to day accounts of family spending and one of my earliest memories of math is my mum calculating the family monthly expenditure.

Unconcious bias?

[Dcnjoe60]

Mattel released a talking Barbie doll that would say "Math class is tough!" That sounds like a pretty deliberate bias.

Re:Unconcious bias?

[sandytaru]

The actual line was "Math is hard, let's go shopping!"

Re:Unconcious bias?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Ken would've talked about how much he liked that window treatment, then went off to listen to his Liza Minelli records.

Re:Unconcious bias?

[Dcnjoe60]

The actual line was "Math is hard, let's go shopping!"

Actually, the line was actually "Math class is tough." "Let's go shopping" was a totally different phrase and not part of the math one. Another was something like "Ooh, I like perfume," and several others. The controversy for feminists was not initially that "Math class is tough" it was that "Math class is tough" followed by one of the "girly" statements. If Barbie had said "Math class is tough" but was followed with "But it beats chemistry" there probably wouldn't have been a controversy at all, except, maybe for chemists.

Re:Unconcious bias?

[AdamWill]

*was about to complain about stereotyping, then realized he was listening to Rufus Wainwright covering Judy Garland*

Cultural bias biggest factor

[fiziko]

As a math and science teacher, I've seen multiple studies on performance of different genders in math and science. There is a gap in North America, although it's closing rapidly. (In the past 40 years, men have gone from having 20% higher averages than women to having 2% higher averages than women. Evolution doesn't act that quickly; it's a purely social bias.) Men still perform slightly higher than women in this region because there are still teachers out there who expect more from male students and push them harder. In other words, if the teacher *expects* female students to get 60s and down and *expects* male students to get 70s and higher, then that teacher who sees a male and a female student with 68% averages, then the teacher will work with the male to improve his performance, but not put in the same effort with the female student. It's a horrible thought, but it's still happening out there. The same is true for race factors, for "learning disabilities" (which I would rather call "learning anomalies" but that's another story) and more.

Bottom line: there is a slight and closing gap between men and women in math and science in North America, not because there is any biological difference in this particular area, but because social biases that exist in the system are failing the female students more often than they are failing the male students.

Re:Cultural bias biggest factor

[ninjagin]

You're already modded to 5, so it would not have any real effect if I were to mod another point to your score, but if I had such a point, I would give it to you.
My kingdom for mod points!

Re:Cultural bias biggest factor

[Oligonicella]

but because social biases that exist in the system are failing the female students more often than they are failing the male students.

Despite the volumes of evidence that the opposite is actually true? All researched, all documented, all well known?

Re:Cultural bias biggest factor

[moke]

You're right that the averages are about equal, but there is far more variance in male ability, and that variance is likely due to biology. Men outnumber women at both extremes and that is never going to change. The only extreme most people care about is the high achieving one, but if they cared to look they'd find that men are overrepresented at the low end as well.

Re:Cultural bias biggest factor

[misexistentialist]

Isn't there are trend that performance is heading down, tests being made easier, etc.? Then it wouldn't be surprising that performance of the more capable students declined at a faster rate until it hit the median, which itself will decline until everyone can barely read numbers, and students are taught to calculate by stomping their feet

Re:Cultural bias biggest factor

[fiziko]

That trend is out there, but started relatively recently compared to the closing of the gap. I also believe that will necessarily turn around at some point, as less competent local employees will force people hiring engineers and the like to hire from overseas in greater numbers than they are now. Something will have to give at some point in the near future.

Re:Cultural bias biggest factor

[iggymanz]

wrong, bottom line is the tests have been "dumbed down" over the years, your closing gap of women's scores is due to that

Re:Cultural bias biggest factor

[moke]

Here's a study showing the gender differences in variance in general intelligence:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

This result would fully explain why men are thought to be better at math. They are overrepresented among high achievers (and low achievers). I went to MIT where you can clearly see this in science and math classes there. I went there when the admit rate was 50/50, the final matriculating class was 60/40 male, but in any hard science or math class you would see something closer to 80/20 male.

Re:Cultural bias biggest factor

[slimjim8094]

"That's not true at all."

Yes it is.

I'd provide more evidence, but you didn't - and in any case even the tiniest bit of good-faith searching would find it.

Re:Cultural bias biggest factor

[fiziko]

I live in Alberta. From 1965 to 2004, we climbed to having the #2 math performance in the world, second to Hong Kong and one notch above Japan. (At that time, matrix operations were still included in our semi-remedial math programs.) The gender gap was closing the entire time. Our standards have only dropped since then. As I said in another reply, that's a contributing factor, but it started more recently than the closing of the gender gap in this region.

Re:Cultural bias biggest factor

[iggymanz]

I was only addressing situation in USA.

ARITHMETIC, not maths

[petes_PoV]

From the article:

The job was simple: As accurately and quickly as possible, add up sets of two-digit numbers in a 4-minute math sprint.

So really the article is bogus as they are two different things (and if you think otherwise, it's probably because you've only every done arthimetic and don't really know what mathematics is).

As it is, anyone in the UK who's ever watched Countdown will have been disabused very rapidly of any anti-woman bias in arthimetic skills.

Re:ARITHMETIC, not maths

[serviscope_minor]

anyone in the UK who's ever watched Countdown

That's be about 62.641 million people or so.

Re:ARITHMETIC, not maths

[AdamWill]

"So really the article is bogus as they are two different things"

Nope, your understanding is bogus.

It's not important whether the test is technically math or arithmetic: what's important is whether *those being studied* consider it to be math. Follow it through. The test demonstrates quite strongly that both women and men acting as 'hiring managers' tend to believe men will be better than women at this arithmetical task, even though it is known that in fact the two perform equally. (This is why the test designers chose the simple arithmetical task: because we know that *in truth*, women and men do it equally well).

The key question is this: do you really think they'd be biased when they assess the ability of men and women to perform a simple arithmetical task, but *not* be biased when assessing their ability to perform a complex mathematical one? Unless you truly think the answer to that question is 'yes', which seems unlikely, then no, you haven't invalidated the test. If anything, I'd have expected that perhaps people wouldn't be biased against women when it came to something this simple (i.e. that if anything, the test had a chance of coming up 'negative' even though the bias does exist). The fact that people displayed such a strong bias *even when the task in question is very simple arithmetic which we know the sexes actually perform equally well*, if anything, makes the study more compelling.

Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

Hardly anybody hires based on gender bias. You do not hire a gender, you hire a person. It doesn't matter if women in general are or are not as good as men in general at a given task, as long as the particular woman you are interviewing is.

All this whining about "gender bias" and the following excuses to try to take responsibility from people for their own failures sickens me.

Now, more on the topic, regarding gender differences, the average is not very different from men and women, so for basic math there is not much of a real difference. On the top, though, which is considerably more relevant to math and logic related profession there is a real biological gap, and no it is not social:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Men and women are quite different in many things, it is a politically correct idiocy to try and force the concept that these differences are only aesthetic.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[u38cg]

Oh, this sounds interesting. Can you provide some examples and evidence, please, for these differences?

Re:Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

Just watch the video, people far more qualified than I am do just that there, and you can access their researches in Harvard and Oxford later if you wish.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

It certainly can, but it usually don't. We live in a highly competitive society. That alone assures that in most cases people are selected by what they are capable of doing, not because of any arbitrary bias. Sure there are stupid and biased people, but their companies won't likely go very far...

Re:Hardly anybody...

[AmiMoJo]

Hardly anybody hires based on gender bias. You do not hire a gender, you hire a person. It doesn't matter if women in general are or are not as good as men in general at a given task, as long as the particular woman you are interviewing is.

Gender bias does not mean what you think it means. It is more subtle than simply deciding not to hire any women. For example when selecting candidates for interview, especially when there are many, some people are biased towards people they subconsciously identify with or think will fit in. This has been demonstrated many times by sending in nearly identical CVs for advertised jobs and finding that the one with the female name or the one with the foreign name doesn't get an interview while the male/native sounding one does.

People who exhibit gender bias don't even necessarily do it on purpose, it is just ingrained on a subconscious level.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[AdamWill]

The video that forms part of a series from these lunatics?

http://www.mgtow.com/

Yeah, i'll pass.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

First they are far from lunatics, second they are not the ones who did the video. But nice ad hominem anyways. I am sure. You have all the right in the world to hold to your dogmas and ignore any fact that comes in the way.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

Still they do have the necessary people and software to check for these technical mistakes, and these guys are able to do very well what they are hired to do: trading. And they do generate the value they need to generate to keep where they are, as banking is hardly a charity endeavor.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[Morpeth]

" logic related profession there is a real biological gap, and no it is not social: "

REALLY ? Please oh wise one, some citations? You are the PERFECT example of what the article is pointing out, you have drawn your gender-based conclusions with ZERO facts or evidence.

"Men and women are quite different in many things" And the kids get drilled into their heads, that 'boys are better at math and science' for their whole lives, did you think for just one minute, that MIGHT affect their choices as college bound teens/adults?

For fuck's sake, that's not being pc, it's called socialization and constrained gender roles.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[Morpeth]

As I said, this guys is actually making the case for the article -- he's making assumptions based on gender without facts, and facts won't change his mind.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

That is just speculation based on your wishful thinking. People do have many bias when choosing things, the very act of choosing anything is a bias. Some of these bias are justified, some are not.

Your idea that gender plays a greater role, or even a very significant one in the market is ridiculous, though. Companies exist to make money. In any activity women are as good as men and undervalued or underhired they automatically become a cheap asset and smart companies will hire them. These smart companies will consequently have a competitive advantage, the practice will be copied and multiply, and the salaries and hiring will balance to accommodate the job offer increase.

In a competitive market there is no space for mass unjustified bias.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[Morpeth]

"That is just speculation based on your wishful thinking."

WRONG again. AmiMoJo is correct, there have been many, many studies -- if you bothered to look, showing bias in hiring based on things like gender or names (preference towards European for example)

The wishful thinking (that gender bias doesn't exist to any meaningful extent) is on your part, not AmiMoJo's.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

It already has.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

I could not care less about studies cherry picking exception cases. Although there are always stupid people hiring in general most people are not, even because there are far more incentives to contract women than men. If there is any bias it is in favor of women, but even this bias cannot make for the difference in aptitudes in some areas.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

Watch the video. Citations are given there. A lot of them...

Re:Hardly anybody...

[u38cg]

Umm...your video is full of cranks, so I'll pass. But thanks.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[Morpeth]

"cherry picking exception cases" Here's a mirror for you.

So some random YouTube videos from some wannabe comedians that you keep linking to is your non-biased scientific evidence? Yeah, sure, ok.

I'm starting to think you're just a troll.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[AmiMoJo]

You assume that the people who make up companies act perfectly. Companies are not machines, they are groups of people. Also, the job market is not a perfect competitive market either. How naive are you? Do you really think that there is no "old boys network" where people are more inclined to hire people from their old schools and universities? That there are no racists or misogynists in management/hiring positions?

Re:Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

The "random" YouTube video is made by a serious journalist who interviews researchers (real scientists, not those Sociologists who think they are doing science) in Harvard, Oxford and other prestigious universities, is full of references to the research cited that can be easily verified, and is about serious research not the politically biased stuff you like. But by all means, keep believing on your dogmas if that feels reassuring to you.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

They don't need to act perfectly. That is the beauty to a competitive market. The less unjustified bias they have the more they will pay for it, consequently the costs will go up, they will be less competitive in relation to other companies that do not have these bias, and will have a higher change of losing to the competition. The tendency is that those inefficient companies will fail and be replaced for more efficient ones and that is exactly how it happens in the real world.
.
You seem to think that jobs are privileges conceded by the employers that are unfairly given to their pals. Unless you are talking about government jobs, nothing is farther from the truth. .Jobs are commercial contracts where both parts have something the other wants and are willing to trade, and you are very naive if you think successful companies can afford to engage frequently in bad deals and keep successful.

Re:Hardly anybody...

[Your.Master]

Why do you assume that *right now* we've reached the balance?

You can clearly see demographic trends changing for decades. Why is right now right, when that means that every previous time must have been wrong? What gives you that impression? Especially, why does it sicken you?

Re:Hardly anybody...

[david_thornley]

You're assuming that most companies constantly strive to be the best, and that is far from the case. Even grossly inefficient companies can go a long time if there isn't much competition, and companies normally go for "good enough" in fields that aren't their core competencies.

I doubt that hiring the best regardless of mass unjustified bias is more of a competitive advantage than running software projects reasonably well, and we all know how that turns out.

Re: Hardly anybody...

[fredprado]

No, I don't. I do believe that black males have a higher chance of having a heart attack, though, and that in average they are better runners, not because of some weird pro-black prejudice, but because many studies show exactly this.

It doesn't matter if you think the world should be different, it is as it is and the sooner you let go of your wishful thinking and prejudices and start to accept scientific facts the sooner you will stop being an idiot.

Math ?

[rossdee]

The trouble with americans is that they think there is only one. (Math)

But it is plural - Mathematics

In the rest of the world its called Maths

Re:Math ?

[Princeofcups]

But it is plural - Mathematics

In the rest of the world its called Maths

The rest of the world do not all speak English. Pedantic pedantics.

Re:Math ?

[Anonymous Coward]

if it's plural, why do you say "it is" called maths?
shouldn't that be "they are" called maths? you just defeated your own point.
besides that, does "the rest of the world" consist of the UK and maybe a few commonwealth countries? i live in japan, and it's called suugaku.

back to the original point, just because it has an "s" at the end doesn't make it plural. in fact, grammatically, it's uncountable.

and, even in the US, OF FUCKING COURSE it's divided into multiple studies/disciplines: algebra, geometry, statistics, calculus, etc, etc.

Re:Math ?

[geekoid]

It's the worlds most spoken language, and it spoken by about half the world.
Not necessarily as the native language. It is the language of the modern world.

Re:Math ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a weird dialectal difference to be bothered by.
But obviously "mathematics" is not a plural noun. It's a mass noun, taking singular verbs.
You say, "Mathematics is...", not "Mathematics are...".
And using the short forms "maths" or "math" doesn't change that.

Re:Math ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not a mathematician but for example in Russian language, Mathematics is/are? singular and not plural. So the rest of the world is quite broad.

Re:Math ?

[AmericaRunsOnDunkin]

But it is plural - Mathematics. In the rest of the world its called Maths

Oh really? And what pray tell is a single Mathematic? I suppose you think hippo is short for hippopotamu.

Re:Math ?

[javierfd]

Actually, the most spoken (source: Wikipedia) is Mandarin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Mandarin 935 Million 14.1% or World Population
Spanish 387 Million 5.85% or World Population
English 365 Million 5.52% or World Population

Re:Math ?

[slimjim8094]

It's not plural at all. It's a collective noun, so it's singular. And 'math.' (note the period) started as an abbreviation, which lost the period by the 1870s. The wacky form 'maths' didn't come about until the 1910s, 40 years later.

It's a stupid spelling. It's awkward to say (the 's' often ends up nearly silent anyway) and grammatically confusing (it's not plural!), where 'math' is just a straight abbreviation. Couple that with the smug yet completely unwarranted sense of superiority ("the trouble with americans") people get for using it, and you've got a winner.

Re:Math ?

[jones_supa]

Same in Finnish: "matematiikka", a singular.

Re:Math ?

[bingoUV]

No, these percentages are for native (aka first) language. Not directly related to the percentages of people who speak English.

Life extension is bad

[Immerman]

Until we come up with a solution to the difficulties posed by overpopulation and start living sustainably, life extension is probably a bad idea, it'll only aggravate some already major challenges:
Option 1) Life extension is expensive - it doesn't directly complicate population issues notably, but it keeps the same rich bastards unfamiliar with modern technology and carrying really old prejudices in power even longer, making adaptation more difficult
Option 2) Life extension is cheap - oops, now we've just aggravated the population explosion. Maybe it's only by another ten percent on top of the 40-70% coming out of Africa and Asia (who presumably mostly still won't be able to afford it), but that's still an extra billion people to deal with.

Re:Life extension is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Could life extension be good?

Compare two human beings. The first is our standard, run of the mill human, with a lifespan of about "threescore and ten", give or take a few decades. The second is someone who will live for centuries.

Now ask both of them how important such issues like pollution, global warming, and sustainability. Who do you think will worry more?

My money is on the person who will still be around in a century.

Re:Life extension is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like how we prevented childbirth in hospitals and childhood vaccinations because of the problems caused by all the kids growing up into adults? Like that? We'll find social solutions or we'll scale back our arrangements right here on Earth. We're not going anywhere else.

Advanced, wealthier nations already have a lower birth rate than poorer countries, the solution is staring you in the face.

Re:Life extension is bad

[Oligonicella]

Yeah, we're going somewhere else. Just not soon or in a massive wave so it would be useful as a population valve. But, you're correct. If we want to lower population, we need to bring everyone else into the current century.

Re:Life extension is bad

[geekoid]

life extension is an awesome idea. I have no idea why you think we are over populated or by what you measure that by.

Re:Life extension is bad

[Immerman]

Perhaps the fact that we're currently consuming an estimated 40% more resources than can sustainably be harvested from the planet, continuously depleting the carrying capacity of the planet's biosphere? Sure, a lot of that is waste, maybe most. But until we get our consumption under control we can't sustainably support even the existing population.

Re:Life extension is bad

[Immerman]

Can't argue with that - anyone claiming that space colonization is a solution to the population problem is living in a fantasy land. Except for the scenario you yourself pointed out - space colonization is an *excellent* test bed for the technologies that would let us build closed-loop arcologies here on Earth.

On the other hand arguing that the resources spent on space exploration would be better spent on life extension research is equally deluded, and far more destructive if successful.

Re:Life extension is bad

[istartedi]

Here's another way of looking at it:

If longer lives were optimal for our species, we would already be living them.

Every species has an average lifespan. Parrots, tortoises, and whales are highly successful and live long lives. OTOH, flies and rats are also highly successful and live short lives.

The species as a whole is "tuned" to live a certain period of time. This is a significant evolutionary parameter. The era of highly developed societies with extended lives due to advanced medicine is just a blink in time. We don't even know if our current level is sustainable or compatible with survival of our species as a whole. Yes, this individual would love to live a healthy 150 year life. You do have to consider what it will do to the replacement rate. Whales are taking a long time to come back. Long life seems to correlate with lower replacement rate. A population full of old folks might be more prone to extinction.

Re:Life extension is bad

[Immerman]

If human beings were better about planning for even a couple years down the road I might buy that line of reasoning.

Re:Life extension is bad

[avandesande]

Let's assume for the discussion that 'life extension' means retaining a good percentage of a person's mental and physical capacity during this extra time...
From an economic standpoint, raising and educating a person to adulthood is very resource intensive and risky. If a person reaches adulthood and is provably productive, doesn't it make sense that extending their lifespan adds value to society?

Re:Life extension is bad

[Immerman]

If we had any shortage in the labor force that would make sense - but we don't. In fact increasing automation seems to be on track to give us a massive glut of labor on the market long before the century is out.

Re:Life extension is bad

[david_thornley]

First, evolution doesn't necessarily tune for optimality. It's random. It'll get a good solution, but not necessarily the absolute best.

Second, we live under different circumstances than our ancestors. I'd be healthier if I didn't have this evolved-in desire for certain foods combined with the ability to get as much as I can eat of them.

Re:Life extension is bad

[guises]

We didn't prevent childbirth in hospitals and childhood vaccinations... I can tell that this is supposed to be some sort of sarcasm, but I'm not following it. What gives you the confidence that we'll find social solutions? Our rampant overpopulation is a new problem - we've only exceeded sustainability just in the last two generations, and we're still cruising on fossil fuels to provide both our energy and our fertilizer.

It's true that birth rates among wealthier nations are lower, but the world's current population is already more than double what can be sustained at the elevated rate of consumption found in wealthier nations. And, what's more, slower != stopped: the world's most populace wealthy nation, The United States, still has a positive birth rate. Economies in those wealthier nations are also tied to an ever-expanding population - Japan may have a negative birth rate, but for the sake of their economy they're trying to provide incentives to encourage their people to have more children, not less.

Re:Life extension is bad

[Agent0013]

No, the United States has a negative birth rate. The only reason the population is not dropping is due to people emigrating to the country. This is why you hear the news every so often about how the minorities will be the largest population (thus no longer minorities, even though they will still be called that for political reasons) by 2020 or whatever date they give.

Re:Life extension is bad

[guises]

Have a look at the first document (number 78) here. The birth rate / death rate ratio has been decreasing over time, but it's still positive. The reason for the minority / majority inversion that you're talking about is in the bottom chart on that document - the birth rate among current minorities (except Cubans) is higher than that of the current majority (white people).

I'm sure that part of the reason for that is the fact that hispanics are mostly catholic, but the bigger reason is likely what the other poster mentioned: the richer a group is, the fewer children they have.

Re:au contraire !

[Chrisq]

I remember reading somewhere that middle eastern women are better at Maths than middle eastern men, but who cares, just because someone is good at something it doesn't mean they want to pursue it as a career. Maybe women have other priorities than men, who would have guessed?

but the middle eastern men are better at assembling IEDs.

Disturbing phenomenon

[Flammon]

The disturbing part is:

... shows you might not change your mind, even if you get evidence to the contrary

What?! I don't know how people can live this way.

Re:Disturbing phenomenon

[geekoid]

And yet, we see it all the time. Why do you thing we still have people who believe that just becasue we have a huge excess of CO2, that traps IR doesn't mean the planet will have more trapped energy.

While it's a lack of critical things skill and the ability to change a narrative based on facts, and not intelligence, this always comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Solution: "Normative Math!"

[INT_QRK]

The solution, of course, is "norming." Create a special math in which designated disadvantaged classes might better succeed. Then legislate federal mandates so that "normative math" is standard curricula for federally funded schools, and for government use, for example in budget preparation and statistical analysis for social program design and management. (I'm not serious; however, I predict that something similar is bound to be introduced in a legislature near you...)

Re:Solution: "Normative Math!"

[slimjim8094]

Simpsons already did it (sorta)

Really? I must be an outlier, then.

[ninjagin]

I've always had the perception that women were better at math, in general. Maybe I've met a lot of brilliant women, though.

you know...

[hypergreatthing]

basic math includes logic. Makes perfect sense to me.

BEcause both geneder

[geekoid]

are a product of the same cultural conditioning.

...in the USA only

[Alomex]

Here's the abstract, with suitable fixes in bold:

Women outnumber men in undergraduate enrollments in most of the developed world, but they are much less likely than men to major in mathematics or science or to choose a profession in these fields in developed countries. This outcome often is attributed to the effects of negative sex-based stereotypes in the USA.

In many other countries women are generally assumed to be better in all academic subjects in elementary school.

Teachers may teach Math differently to the sexes

[technokids]

Perhaps we should look at education for the cause of this disparity. Do teachers have different expectations for boys and girls in math? Do they encourage the two sexes equally? As a former teacher, I could see that girls generally, and it's a solid generalization, already by the age of 10 felt that they weren't 'good at math'. This impression was difficult, but not impossible to change.

Competition

[PPH]

Men have learned to compete for something. Women compete against each other. In the few venues (like sports) where head to head competition occurs, it does so under very structured rules. And winners are judged by the superiority of their skills, not tripping their adversary. That's considered poor sportsmanship.

Its a cultural thing, taught from a very early age. Think about the stereotype of a man who talks trash behind other people's back. When men do trash talk, its is to each other's face as a precursor to some competitive act. Like the (usually staged) face off before a boxing match. Even then, the object is to remain cool and prove one's superiority in the ring rather than tossing insults back and forth.

Re:find another doctor--fast

[grep -v '.*' *]

(Why did you get zapped back to 0? I thought about EXACTLY that issue but then neglected to bring it up. Oh, AC post; gotcha.)

The real doctors have always been perfectly fine for years. Indeed, EVERYONE has always been fine, this is the first WTF?! moment I've had there. Since all she was doing was moving numbers from devices (scale, BP, me), transferring them to a sticky note and then to a computer, all she "needed" to do is be able to slightly read and match the funny symbols to the keypad. (Just like at McDonalds. Or hell, even an OCR program.)

Also, I've heard thru the grapevine that this doc might soon be retiring. Don't know if that's true or relates anyhow to staff support. I wouldn't think so; she did seem to be an adequate gofer and seemingly could follow simple directions. (I'm NOT trying to be denigrating here -- hell, she could have been a receptionist trainee for all I know. And I DO know the support staff in the outpatient OR with the doc a month ago seemed much more competent.)

And I will give also her this: she fully admitted she DIDN'T do math. So I'd think she would refuse to do any computations except basic ones which could easily be corrected. She COULD have just written down 67 inches and be done with it. (That's literally wrong, but it's not THAT far off and doesn't trip the insanity alarm like a height of 511 inches would.) I'd much rather have someone saying "I don't know" and asking for help versus plowing thru and generating bad but reasonable looking noise.

I just never thought I'd meet a "Math is Hard" Barbie in real life. I mean hell: *I* had subjects in school I didn't like either and am still weak in. But if you need inches out of feet, it seems that you'd make a cheat sheet if not just memorize 2x thru 6x. After all, I was the 24th patient that day because that was the count on the signup sheet. It's not like it was a surprise event.

Oh, and she did tell me that she really liked history because all of the facts were static. I told her the same thing -- "So who's buried in Grant's tomb? He's dead; who cares, unless he's coming back as a zombie."


Human history as static factual unchanging knowledge -- start the objections here and stay in line, please.

Re:Teachers may teach Math differently to the sexe

[RobinH]

Maybe count how many questions were about bullets, cars, boats, and velocities. Not sure about math, but in physics it's a well-known issue with textbooks... they just appeal to male interests, but you can create a textbook that covers the same content but teaches it using more relative examples.

Don't know about you, but....

[rholtzjr]

My sister has a Masters Degree in Mathematics and also teaches an advanced placement Calculus class at a local high school. Women bad at math????
I know that to be different. I would rather think that it has to do with having the ability to think in an abstract manner. Some people can do this easier than others. Gender has nothing to do with it.

Re:Don't know about you, but....

[gweihir]

Indeed. I know more more women that are mathematicians than men, and I know a few. What I have observed though is that more women give up early when things get mentally tough and require deep, exact thinking. Those that push through are not better or worse, so this seems to have nothing to do with talent or aptitude at all. I have heard (western) women women justifying their giving up because this was too much effort and they would marry or find a man to do this for them anyways. I also have taught a group of female honors-students from Tunesia that claimed "mathematics is easy". (Well, this was 20 years ago, but they knew their options were pretty limited if they did not achieve economic independence.)

I strongly suspect this is indeed a cultural problem and western women more often think that they do not need to bother. Of course, all that modern "feminist" BS about mathematics being "male" does not help at all.

Re:I do not think this is fully true

[Creepy]

Not sure if you're an idiot or not.

Gender socialization & self-selection

[Morpeth]

The old 'boys are better at math and science' crap still exists today, and it serves no one.

Even at my daughter's school (which is considered one of the better prep schools in the region), I was dismayed that their competitive robotics club has 1 girl (out of like 12). I was a bit p*ssed when I asked the headmaster about this during a parent's meeting and he answer was basically that more boys are drawn to the club than girls. I was thinking, 'yeah.. no f-cking sh*t Sherlock, but did you consider WHY this is the case and what are you doing about it?' Needless to say, I was unimpressed by his answer and it's certainly made me reconsider just how 'progressive' this school really is when the person leading it has that kind of attitude.

My own example aside, I think plenty of people in academia, technical professional positions, etc still have this attitude, and it's bad for the kids, and our competitiveness as a nation. Some of the sharpest women programmers/engineers I've known are from India, not exactly the bastion of gender equality, and yet...

Nonsense

[justthinkit]

Good singers very much know how to sing, and how to teach. I have received instruction from a number of them.

My father taught, and was very good at math. I also teach, and used to teach math to my fellow students in high school.

Being good at math is like being a good programmer -- iterative process, more than one way of doing things, things build on other things. Not something that everyone is good at, but not something that "you can't teach because you are good at it".

Women apparently suck at math and men can't read.

[cyn1c77]

Before you mod me down, read my post (and the article)!

What really surprised me was that the article text actually states that women's math scores were below that of men in every country tested:

Although the female test-takers lagged behind males on the math portion of the test, the size of the gap closely tracked the degree of gender inequality in their countries, shrinking to nearly zero in emancipated countries like Sweden and Norway. That suggests that cultural biases rather than biology may be the better explanation for the math gender gap.

So apparently, it is entirely objective to state that the test results indicate that women are worse at basic math than men. Except in Iceland.

Woman apparently are also always better at reading comprehension than men. (See the article.)

The authors argue this results from misogynistic prejudice. However, if you look at the actual article, the correlation is not exact. Norway and Sweden are more emancipated than Iceland, yet have lower female math scores relative to the males. Portugal, France and Poland also introduce a deviation from the trend. Thus, 5 of the 10 countries evaluated do not correlate well with the authors' suggested trend, indicating that the emancipation index is probably not the right metric to be comparing to.

Re:" known pattern"

[Dareth]

That is a good way to think of it. To mathematicians these are " known pattern" but to the average person they might as well be magic. I know plenty of women who are "not good at math" but can make complex crochet and needlepoint patterns without thinking about it. To them, those are just " known pattern".

Mob Rule

[pubwvj]

If everybody thinks it is true then it must be true. After all, that is how we proved Global Warming and Climate Change. Worked for witch burning too back in Salem.

It is called maths!? IT!! Really?

[Radical Moderate]

If "Maths" is plural, shouldn't that be "In the rest of the world they are called Maths"? Ipso facto: Math.

Calculators

[Frankie70]

it was in the '70s and there was no PC-based POS back then

Were there no calculators back then?

Re:but

[Immerman]

Why would anyone capable of contributing meaningfully to science and R&D be flipping burgers? The pay is crap, and the work is worse. People don't flip burgers because we have a huge shortage of burger flippers, they flip burgers because they're not qualified for anything else. Automate their jobs away (which seems inevitable) and they're not qualified for *anything*. Except perhaps experimental lab "rat".

Add to that the fact that the only people who go into science and technologies are pretty much those who find the field inherently interesting - the pay and benefits are typically much better if you apply the same intelligence to a career in business, especially in the financial sector.