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Re: What has technology subtracted?
Posted:
Jun 14, 2006 2:59 AM
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On Jun 14, 2006, at 2:33 AM, Wayne Bishop wrote:
> I should have thought to add... Barry Simon is chair of the math
> department at Caltech and our Mikey isn't.
Neither, of course, is our Whine, er, Wayne. But what of it? My point
was not to question Prof. Simon's credentials as a mathematician or
as an administrator of a university mathematics department. As you know.
You beg the question as to Simon's extremist statement. And extremist
it is. Reminds me of a famous statement by Andre Toom about
intellectual bankruptcy. Equally arrogant and equally wrong-headed,
of course.
> Professor Simon does think knowledge of addition of fractions is
> reflective of deeper stuff and so do I. My analogy has always been
> at a bit deeper level but not all that much: Is it possible to get
> a get a PhD in mathematics without ever learning to complete the
> square? My answer to my own question is "Sure!" but my guess is
> that it almost never happens. One does not cause the other,
> obviously, but the lack would be representative of so much more.
> And, if a student has been appropriately taught, but still doesn't
> "get it"? Please. Don't certify the candidate to teach my kids
> (or my grandkids, or my great...) To vote? To serve on a jury?
> Sure; no problem. Constitutionally, we can't impose such stringent
> conditions. Most of our peers don't know how to add fractions,
> much less how to complete the square. Or the difference between
> astronomers and astrologers. Something about stars, isn't it?
>
> http://www.math.caltech.edu/people/oped.html
>
> Wayne
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Michael Paul Goldenberg
1604 Saunders Crescent
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
734 644-0975 (c)
734 786-8425 (h)
mikegold@umich.edu
"You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct
way, and the only way it does not exist." F. Nietzsche
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