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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (51256)	3/1/2008 9:15:52 PM
From: Travis_Bickle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543050

I took a class in college called "Use Of Books And Libraries." It was me and a bunch of football linemen, including Dock Lucky who was famous for being able to bench press 550 pounds. They look even huger from up close than they do from the stands. Really great class, we'd spend each hour studying a different aspect of "books," for instance we might spend an hour studying the uses of an "index." The homework assignments were to go to the library and locate a specified book using the card catalogue. I got an "A"

To: epicure who wrote (51256)	3/1/2008 9:16:58 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543050

I took calculus and have never used it. I don't think calculus is something most people need. Well, here's my argument. One of the fundamental components of the general education component of a liberal arts education should be the ability to read and analyze information. Much of the information we receive today is numerical--I should make a list here, but it would be much too long. The math to interpret that data is by and large based on calculus. In my own field, sociology, you cannot understand the math that generates results in social policy well enough to criticize it without calculus. If you look at many of the assumptions in multivariate analysis, they are based on calculus. Since the assumptions are that the math is close enough to real world relations, even if it's not a perfect fit, it behooves one to be able to understand the assumptions. I'm not arguing that we are illiterate without it. Just that not only is that happening, I suspect it's the trend. Gonna get worse and worse for those of us without calculus backgrounds. In my own case, I tried, about ten years ago, to get the basics. Between aging brain cells and too much else going on in my life, I had to give up. I had a friend I taught with at one of the ivies; he was in political science and I was in sociology. He later became a pollster and Clinton was among his clients. We got together for a visit about ten to twelve years ago. Started arguing his data. Ouch. He had learned his calculus in the interim. I just finally had to step back.