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I agree with this article, and I don't think it's because "everyone DESERVES to succeed". There's no point in having a barrier which is not a useful determinant of success for the degree you're earning. I'm a fan of allowing specialization earlier, instead of spending more years on a "general" education. I did my studies across the pond, where an equivalent college degree takes 1 year less than in the states, which is possible by narrowing focus earlier.
general crap you should have learned in Grade School, like History or Essay Writing.
Note that author and xer cohorts do not complain about these subjects, because they are easy and everyone gets an A!
Also, higher (university) education has to be by definition an elite endeavor. I do not see any problem with teaching topic that 80% of population can not understand, as 80% of population probably should not be studying at university.
Our current system uses Math in part for exercising the young minds in various types of reasoning, and problem solving, as well as in reading comprehension and even something as simple as following instructions. That is, traditional curriculum has for centuries used math to give growing minds practice in these things,, before they have even decided what they want to do, or for that matter what they are really good at. . It's not perfect. Some smart students just aren't up for the homework.
The "elite" universities are supposed to be ... "elite"! An undergraduate degree is supposed to mean you have mastered both breadth and depth in math, science, language, history, arts, etc.
The point is that the higher maths are not for everybody and it's retarded to expect everybody to be conversant.
From my perspective, it's ridiculous to think that barely scratching the surface of logarithmic functions (simply the inverse of exponential functions), is somehow very far into higher Math. (that's an "advanced" algebra 2 topic).
That's like saying that learning how to read at the age of six would be better if there were more real world applications.
I know you like to argue, but maybe you would consider just rereading the last two lines and pondering them at least a little.
requirement studying something they'll never really understand and never know when to employ, and never employ it anyway. It simply is a time suck and frustration creator for most.
I agree that Probability/Statistics is more important to real life (and the forming of a viable/realistic perspective on real life; i.e. rejecting much of the laughable SJW fallacies) than Calculus is.
If anything, the most important (philosophical) lesson in Calculus is that "a slice of time" is not a point but a segment . . . just like in Quantum Physics, the lesson is that distance and time slices/segments have a lower size limit (Planck Length and Planck time). These are important reality checks on human minds that tend to pursue logical extremes and silliness (such as the Zeno Paradox and "supply == demand" fallacy above).
Math is definitely a way to shake out those unworthy of holding a bachelor of science with all the rights and privelages pertaining thereto.
. I’d honestly never considered using derivatives to examine the supply/demand relationship and how the result could be a gut-level indictment of the economy.
Likewise, there is no point in time Supply = Demand exactly, but only movement of price over time as Supply and Demand leads each other due to external happenings in real life
So government bidding up demand as in Keynesianism is essentially a mathematical fraud fooling minds that don't understand the basic philosophical underpinning of Calculus.
When supply leads demand to the upside (regarding goods and services), consumers feel abundance (as those who previously couldn't afford it now can)
I don't see that he did that
Classical Education made Math a secondary part of the curriculum and limited to Basic Arithmetic and Geometry. Music and Astronomy considered equal to Basic Arithmetic. Trigonometry you might learn as a (warrant) officer on a ship, but more likely depended on the rutter, log, experience, and dead reckoning
What you say is all true, but times change. 200 years ago calculus, chemistry, physics, etc. were all new subjects! Would you rather have the requirements of students 200 years ago? Elite universities are no longer requiring Latin AND ancient Greek (thank goodness, although I did take Latin in high school). Classic (western) literature is vastly scaled down as well. Back when calculus wasn't required, there were no Cliff Notes for your Nietzsche or Plato!
I would agree of course that there is no point in time when it's literally true that supply = demand, or for that matter that an exact numerical value of either can even be known. I can see that one of Zeno's paradox's might be used in a very round about and indirect way to get students thinking about how there is no mathematical identity, supply = demand, and that if and when people informally talk about supply equaling demand, they are simply addressing a conceptual balance between the two in a mature economic situation as it pertains to price.
But how the leap is made from that, to this ?
Reality saysSo government bidding up demand as in Keynesianism is essentially a mathematical fraud fooling minds that don't understand the basic philosophical underpinning of Calculus.
Keynes advocated temporary manipulative stimulation of the economy as a way of dealing with a situations we have seen when supply exceeding demand was not a stimulus to economic activity. Because we know the following to be false (or at least only true in a relative sense):
Reality saysWhen supply leads demand to the upside (regarding goods and services), consumers feel abundance (as those who previously couldn't afford it now can)
That is, we know that in times of economic recession or depression, that sometimes supply > demand without consumers feeling abundance.
Even with a ridiculously oversimplified simple economic situation, without money lending, and without all the elaborate money games that our banking system has evolved, and with say a money supply tied to gold, even with all of this, you would still get inequality and the hoarding of wealth leading to times of excess supply created and demand not meeting it through falling prices. WE know from history that we would get more frequent and more extreme "booms and busts," if such a simple system could even support the highly dynamic and complex market based economy we have.
But I'm not arguing that there aren't any imperfect or even corrupt elements to our banking and finance system, as it related to the federal reserve and fiat money. . If the fed temporarily increasing the money supply to stimulate the economy in difficult economic times is fraud, then how many times more fraudulent is it for the government to explode the deficit in good economic times (by doing tax cuts) for the purpose of what ?
Elementary Algebra is all 95% of what students will ever need. Doctors and Network Admins don't need Calculus to do their jobs. Nor do Pharmacists. Why set up students to fail by requiring advanced Mathematics as Undergrads or worse, HS Students.
Most College Math requirement courses are taught by socially retarded Grad Students, not tenured faculty.
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2016/03/10/dana-goldstein-advanced-math-is-pointless-and-only-causing-our-students-to-fail