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This is a little bit similar to my own experience. I was very good at math in elementary school, still pretty good in high school, but mediocre in college. Isn't this what happens to everyone? Even people good enough at math to breeze through undergrad work eventually get to a level they can't really wrap their heads around and find out that, compared to the real geniuses, they're dense after all. Some math problems go unsolved for hundreds of years. They're just too hard, for anyone. I reached my level of incompetence in math, but it never occurred to me that I was a victim. I simply wasn't smart enough to go any further with it. If I experienced any privilege, it was in not being subjected to idiots telling me that calculus was hard because the world was against me, and that if I had been treated fairly I could have breezed through to a Fields Medal.
I had the same experience. I've even shared on here that of all my engineering education and experience, advanced math was and is my toughest area. Fortunately for me in my engineering field the math was fairly repetitive AND I had the benefit of electronics including advanced calculators and computers with excellent math software.
I would love to claim I am great at math. I'm not. No amount of teaching, practice or effort will make me anywhere near as good at math as some of the brilliant mathematicians I've met, and they are far and few between, nor will I ever be even remotely close in ability to a barely passing PhD in math. I'll never be able to hold a candle to them in math, and I accept that, just like I accept I will never be as fast as a Olympic runner, be as good at basketball as Michael Jordan or play golf as well as Tiger Woods does now even after his back injuries, much less play like he did when he was healthy.
We all have our limits. Even if our dreams are held back by our limits, we each need to embrace our strengths and utilize them to our best advantage for this is the best way for us to succeed. I could cry that it's unfair that Jimi Hendrix was an incredible guitarist in his time... a legend and visionary player... OR I could embrace the gifts I have including my passion and drive, which together enabled me to get my engineering degree. Had I not worked harder, tried harder, refusing to not succeed, I never would have become an engineer. I can be proud of my accomplishments even though I know those accomplishments are no where near what others in my field have accomplished or their ability.
Sometimes we just need to be thankful for what we have and not cry over what we wish we could have.
This is a little bit similar to my own experience. I was very good at math in elementary school, still pretty good in high school, but mediocre in college. Isn't this what happens to everyone? Even people good enough at math to breeze through undergrad work eventually get to a level they can't really wrap their heads around and find out that, compared to the real geniuses, they're dense after all. Some math problems go unsolved for hundreds of years. They're just too hard, for anyone. I reached my level of incompetence in math, but it never occurred to me that I was a victim. I simply wasn't smart enough to go any further with it. If I experienced any privilege, it was in not being subjected to idiots telling me that calculus was hard because the world was against me, and that if I had been treated fairly I could have breezed through to a Fields Medal.
I had the same experience. I excelled in math when I was younger and it came effortlessly to me and I was usually the top of my class. When I got older, I was still above average in my abilities, but I was no longer the best in the class as I had been when I was younger. A big part of this was that I as I advanced, the pool of students became smaller as the selection for math ability increased. I wasn't becoming dumber; I just had real competition now. As you wrote, this is the way it should work for everyone if they are in a field where they actually have to compete.
Much of the mentality pushed by progressives comes from an inability to cope with the realization that they aren't the best, which is why they feel the need to knock down others who are at the top. This female mathematician just wants to reduce the competition. She wouldn't mind being surrounded by low performing mathematicians as long as she was the best of them.
She isn't a wannabe academic - a liberal institution made her a by definition academic.
How insulting you are to her accomplishment.
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Originally Posted by Supachai
I had the same experience. I excelled in math when I was younger and it came effortlessly to me and I was usually the top of my class. When I got older, I was still above average in my abilities, but I was no longer the best in the class as I had been when I was younger. A big part of this was that I as I advanced, the pool of students became smaller as the selection for math ability increased. I wasn't becoming dumber; I just had real competition now. As you wrote, this is the way it should work for everyone if they are in a field where they actually have to compete.
Much of the mentality pushed by progressives comes from an inability to cope with the realization that they aren't the best, which is why they feel the need to knock down others who are at the top. This female mathematician just wants to reduce the competition. She wouldn't mind being surrounded by low performing mathematicians as long as she was the best of them.
Is it also possible that genetics explains why there are more elite male mathematicians than elite female mathematicians - not persecution.
Due to genes connected to intelligence being located on the X Chromosomes only - it means men have significantly higher variability in IQ. Men are more likely to be low-IQ, but also significantly disproportionately more likely to be geniuses.
Men also have better visual spatial reasoning.
The lady in the OP's article is a science denier or merit denier if she wonders why men are more likely to be elite at math.
I had the same experience. I excelled in math when I was younger and it came effortlessly to me and I was usually the top of my class. When I got older, I was still above average in my abilities, but I was no longer the best in the class as I had been when I was younger. A big part of this was that I as I advanced, the pool of students became smaller as the selection for math ability increased. I wasn't becoming dumber; I just had real competition now. As you wrote, this is the way it should work for everyone if they are in a field where they actually have to compete.
Much of the mentality pushed by progressives comes from an inability to cope with the realization that they aren't the best, which is why they feel the need to knock down others who are at the top. This female mathematician just wants to reduce the competition. She wouldn't mind being surrounded by low performing mathematicians as long as she was the best of them.
This is a little bit similar to my own experience. I was very good at math in elementary school, still pretty good in high school, but mediocre in college. Isn't this what happens to everyone? Even people good enough at math to breeze through undergrad work eventually get to a level they can't really wrap their heads around and find out that, compared to the real geniuses, they're dense after all. Some math problems go unsolved for hundreds of years. They're just too hard, for anyone. I reached my level of incompetence in math, but it never occurred to me that I was a victim. I simply wasn't smart enough to go any further with it. If I experienced any privilege, it was in not being subjected to idiots telling me that calculus was hard because the world was against me, and that if I had been treated fairly I could have breezed through to a Fields Medal.
Exactly. Imagine high level mathmeticians at Princeton? How is even an above average person going to compete at that level? Even geniuses have trouble at that level. And there is nothing to be ashamed of if you can't do it. It's really like professional sports - only the truly talented who perform better than 98% of their peers can do it. I think math should be treated the same way as professional sports. No one is clambering for diversity there. It is all about natural ability and skill.
Looks like math is in the SJW crosshairs. Teach for America, which recruits Ivy Leaguers to spend a couple years after graduation teaching in poor neighborhoods, is developing a new math curriculum which includes this gem:
There seems to be an effort to stigmatize higher level math because only people with high IQs can do it, and we all know IQ tests are racist. One of the commenters under Herron's essay calling for white men to quit math wrote: Get Out The Way | inclusion/exclusion
See, that is the thing. You don't need a high IQ to do the higher level math. You need to put in a lot of effort, practice and have it explained in a way that it works for you.
Most of the people I know who are horrible at math are so because the are flipping lazy.
Not a surprise that progressives are after math, it is the foundation of logic and they need their followers to be clueless of logical process or they will see the holes in the ideology and behavior of the progressives.
Progressives need stupid lazy people to buy the tainted goods and beg for hand outs.
See, that is the thing. You don't need a high IQ to do the higher level math. You need to put in a lot of effort, practice and have it explained in a way that it works for you.
Most of the people I know who are horrible at math are so because the are flipping lazy.
Not a surprise that progressives are after math, it is the foundation of logic and they need their followers to be clueless of logical process or they will see the holes in the ideology and behavior of the progressives.
Progressives need stupid lazy people to buy the tainted goods and beg for hand outs.
No. You need a high level of IQ to do higher order mathematics. Period. You can 'study' certain topics in mathematics until hell freezes over, but if you simply don't have the cognitive ability to understand it you'll never understand it no matter how much you study or how good of a teacher you might have. Studying hard and trying will only get you through calculus, linear algebra, differential equations and maybe even topics such as PDEs, but once things become much more theoretical cognitive ability takes over over rote and mechanical calculation processes that are used in those aforementioned types of classes.
I have a degree in mathematics and PhD in engineering where I was required to take advanced PhD level engineering mathematics. Even with a degree in math, there were certain topics I know I'll never be able to understand no matter how much I try. I don't care how much you study and 'try', you simply need a higher level of IQ to be able to follow and prove something like Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems, The Church Turing Thesis, or Russell and Whitehead's proof that 1+1 really does = 2. I earned my degree in mathematics with flying colors as an undergraduate and took proof heavy classes such as learning operators in Hilbert Spaces and functional analysis, many courses in abstract algebra, and Lie Algebra, and on Computability and Logic, but one of the only classes I can admittedly say I've ever been lost in in my entire life was when I had to take a class on theoretical Graph Theory and Optimizaton when earning my PhD. First time ever I was 'lost', and I studied non-stop for that class all week for the entire semester.
Last edited by fibonacci; 05-20-2017 at 11:14 AM..
No. You need a high level of IQ to do higher order mathematics. Period. You can 'study' certain topics in mathematics until hell freezes over, but if you simply don't have the cognitive ability to understand it you'll never understand it no matter how much you study or how good of a teacher you might have.
Yes, and it amazes me how many don't understand this. People actually believe that, if they wanted to put in the time and effort, they could do the work of a professional mathematician. Analogies with pro sports don't even begin to cover it. Almost anyone can at least learn to play basketball. But the average human is no more capable of doing advanced mathematics than a chicken. Math is a field where the minimum requirement for competency is genius.
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Studying hard and trying will only get you through calculus, linear algebra, differential equations and maybe even topics such as PDEs...
I think even that is wildly optimistic. Maybe it applies to a college student with a 115 IQ, but for someone in the double digits, and that's more than half the population, those subjects are pretty much out of reach. Go down another standard deviation to sub-85 IQ territory and even high school algebra is way too hard.
She's a bonafide academic with a PhD from Princeton and a job with the U. of Hawaii. And her opinions are a natural outgrowth of the mainstream media view that "whiteness" is screwing up math education. From The Atlantic:
Quote:
...a new paper disrupts those narratives by examining an unaddressed element of the equation—namely, the ways in which “whiteness” in math education reproduces racial advantages for white students and disadvantages historically marginalized students of color.
Dan Battey, an associate math professor at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education, said he set out to synthesize for math educators the research literature from sociology, history, and other disciplines on whiteness—defined in the paper as “the ideology that maintains white supremacy, valuing one racial group over others.” He also sought to expose how whiteness operates in classrooms and schools, leaving black, Latino, and indigenous students disenfranchised mathematically.
This math "whiteness" thing is pretty amazing. It has the power not only to make black, Latino and indigenous students do poorly but also to make Asian kids do great.
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One of the commenters under Herron's essay calling for white men to quit math wrote:
