Maths again

To return to the matter of being hopeless at maths. Is this bad teaching especially early on, or is the ability to master maths something that many just lack? I trust it is the former since maths — or at least algebra- and logic are just about synonymous; Boolean algebra is also called Boolean logic. I glanced at Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica once; it seemed to be all logical algebra. Far above my head of course; I can’t think how I came I look at it. So on the one hand if someone can argue logically they ought to be intellectually capable of maths to a fair standard. But on the other hand if someone really can’t manage maths is he or she capable of mounting a logical argument? If not can he or she be trusted in a position of trust and power?

The U K bill to the E U last year was £13.5 billion and that is the figure rolled out by the Leave campaign. But the U K actually paid 8 billion and got back 4.5 billion in grants of various sorts. Does the Leave campaign deliberately set out to mislead? The evidence given to a Select Committee by leaders of the campaign suggests that they don’t know what the figures are. Are voters capable of checking the figures? I would hope so. The net sum is about £3.5 billion. Still sounds a lot, but is it? Are most people up to judging?

The referendum to change the U K voting system to “second preference” was lost it is said because many found it too difficult to understand! If true that is frightening.

A couple of years ago one Curtice who is a Prof at a Scottish university and a polling expert, was trying to explain to Paddy Ashdown, once the High Representative in Kosovo, Jonathon Dimbleby a much respective T V pundit and Caroline Spellman then a junior minister in the government, why the party that got the most votes in the British system might not get the most seats. They could see that if the unfortunate party won in the larger constituencies that would be so — other things being equal- but try as they might the other two reasons escaped them.(By the way those are winning by large margins and winning with a high turnout.) Ashdown did an excellent job in Kosovo so make of that what you will.

People talk about something increasing exponential without having a clue what the exponential is. Does that matter? To understand the exponential you need some calculus. I happen to believe that to say things you don’t understand is to be deplored.

I could go on. We are bombarded with alleged findings linking disease with life style. The latest is coffee warding off colon cancer. Are these valid? What is the probability of chance occurrence? Is there a plausible causal link? Is the condition rare anyway? Most people do not have the time to check but ought they to be capable of checking? Everyone ought to be aware of the difference between a correlation and a causal link.

Should UK members of Parliament most with the sketchiest maths, decide on High Speed 2 or the Hinkley Point power station both projected to cost many billions and that will inevitably finish up costing even more? Should a minister who knows nothing about computing try to introduce a system of Universal Credit? The likely outcome suggests not.

I really do not know how vital a decent grasp of maths is either for those in authority or for people as citizens but I am quite sure that if more people had a better grasp that would be a good thing. Everyone should understand compound interest for a start. Unfortunately teaching maths is not easy. The first difficulty as I have already suggested that it is often taught to children by teachers who themselves have something close to a phobia about maths. That they communicate to the youngsters. The second difficulty is that maths seems to have nothing to do with the real world. Boole invented his algebra as an abstract exercise but it turned out years later to be what was need for computer programming. Do we all need to know Pythagoras’s theorem? And if so do we need to know how to prove it? A partial solution would be to concentrate on statistics which is more obviously relevant than say geometry. There is often with stats the satisfaction of finding that what we have been told is wrong or at least unjustified.

To take the simple case of the lever. Do I understand the lever because that was something in elementary applied maths or because of experience or because I see intuitively how a lever works? And does it matter anyway? My brother was a brilliant and much respected teacher of history but I’d wager he wouldn’t have had a clue. But then he failed to see that an I Q was logically simply the score in an I Q test. Intelligence is supposed to be something innate but something has to be manifest to be measured.

Sorry I have rambled on without really getting anywhere.