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From: doner@henri.ucsb.edu (John Doner)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Football Coach vs. Mathematics teachers (long).
Message-ID: <11053@hub.ucsb.edu>
Date: 5 May 91 01:27:19 GMT
References: <1991May2.195751.22316@psych.toronto.edu> <1991May3.124454.12758@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1991May03.151809.17836@wimsey.bc.ca>
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Reply-To: doner@henri.UUCP (John Doner)
Organization: University of California, Santa Barbara
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In article <1991May03.151809.17836@wimsey.bc.ca> balden@wimsey.bc.ca (Bruce Balden) writes:
>This inability of the Canadian (and probably American) public to understand
>the simplest economic/mathematical ideas seriously impairs the quality
>of public debate in Canadian society.

Perhaps things aren't all that bad.  My own experience is that it
takes patience and a little creativity in formulating explanations.  A
few years ago, I was foreman of a jury considering a personal injury
case.  The plaintiff's lifetime earnings were going to be
substantially less as a result of the injury.  The judge instructed
us, as the law required, to use a table giving present value of future
income in figuring damages--we were supposed to supply our estimate of
the appropriate discount rate (interest rate) to use for the table.
My fellow jurors did not understand the concept involved.  But after I
explained it about five times in as many different ways, they got the
idea.

In the hallway after the trial, we chatted with the lawyers.  One
said, "You USED the table?  I don't understand that; the JUDGE doesn't
understand it.  You're the first jury I've had that used it."

There's a communication gap between the mathematically inclined and
others.  Abstract concepts which seem trivially simple to us may be
obscure to the average person.  So don't give up too easily when you
need to explain some mathematical idea.

John E. Doner	doner@henri.ucsb.edu	(805)893-3941
Dept. Mathematics, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106