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From: balden@wimsey.bc.ca (Bruce Balden)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Football Coach vs. Mathematics teachers (long).
Message-ID: <1991May05.032207.7867@wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 5 May 91 03:22:07 GMT
References: <1991May3.124454.12758@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1991May03.151809.17836@wimsey.bc.ca> <11053@hub.ucsb.edu>
Organization: Computer Signal Corporation
Lines: 51

In article <11053@hub.ucsb.edu> doner@henri.UUCP (John Doner) writes:
>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
[ OMITTED: Uptlifting story about juries, when properly
instructed understanding annuity tables, despite judges not 
understanding said tables]
I, in fact agree, that the average person, even the mythical mathematical
blockhead has the ability to understand sophisticated concepts WHEN
PROPERLY MOTIVATED.  

I should have amended my original comment to:
The ignorance of the Canadian and American publics of the basics
of mathematics and economics ...
I DO NOT imply that it is hopeless to teach them, but rather that their
experience with the subject tends to make them regard the subject as
either irrelevant or far more complex and difficult than it really is.


>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


-- 
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed are my own, not those of my employer.
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*	Bruce E. Balden	    		Computer Signal Corporation Canada    *
*	Thaumaturgist			225B Evergreen Drive		      *