As a female with a degree in math, I am beyond offended. Why I love math, is that it’s very factual and logic based. This seems to be the opposite. I don’t care that “men” came up with it.
As a female with a degree in math, I am beyond offended. Why I love math, is that it’s very factual and logic based. This seems to be the opposite. I don’t care that “men” came up with it.
Thank you for honesty. Indeed, from someone who has spent their life in engineering, where mathematics and statistics is a daily task, the “new math” is nothing but garbage.
Feel you. I studied physics in a french speaking small university 5 years ago in canada. No woke crap, none. The "post-modernist progressist west coast american" influence was not there yet because of the language barrier I guess. All that stuff at fancy universities is alien to me. Anyhow, I'm glad I could attended a non-brainwashed university, even if on my cv it's like 10000% less impressing than uc berkeley (or even uni of toronto).
I know plenty of good women STEM grads in all sorts of fields. There are a few great women mathematicians not a whole lot compared to men but they do exist. The big issue is that we are dealing with the tails of the math ability distribution between various groups (sex, ethnicity, etc.). Anybody that is a competent engineer, mathematician, etc. is already way out in the tail compared to the general pop. Now start counting folks that actually push the state of the art in any of those fields, those folks are way, way out in the tail of the tail. The farther out you go the more you select for men.
In my engineering classes I noted only men. Why I wondered why, I got told women simply weren't interested in 'things'. I read that infant boys are intrigued by bright flashy objects and girls appreciate faces. So perhaps many of us drift into roles defined by biology. But I have had female engineers who worked with me, rare indeed. They often had a different emotional mindset that brought a perspective to projects that was useful generally, sometimes negative. Then again not all men are interested in understanding the terms of a differential equation and translating that into a important stress term to avoid breaking something. Trying to force people into roles they aren't interested in seems futile. Perhaps this "math" course may help students appreciate the beauty in math - hope so.
And yet we might still get an occasional Emmy Noether (for example), if we don't completely lock her out of the clubhouse. Mathematics is a human endeavor, not some platonic realm of pure reason practiced by disembodied beings of pure logic. Treating people fairly and respecting their real accomplishments when they don't look like the in-group is hard enough without this pernicious affirmative activism putting its thumbs on the scales in everybody's eyes. These people genuinely have no idea the damage they're doing.
I am not a mathematician but am offended as a woman. On a mathematician, and on no other professional, should stand a gender or a colour. We are all humans and should be respected as such. That univ lost all respect
As a female with a degree in math, I am beyond offended. Why I love math, is that it’s very factual and logic based. This seems to be the opposite. I don’t care that “men” came up with it.
Thank you for honesty. Indeed, from someone who has spent their life in engineering, where mathematics and statistics is a daily task, the “new math” is nothing but garbage.
Feel you. I studied physics in a french speaking small university 5 years ago in canada. No woke crap, none. The "post-modernist progressist west coast american" influence was not there yet because of the language barrier I guess. All that stuff at fancy universities is alien to me. Anyhow, I'm glad I could attended a non-brainwashed university, even if on my cv it's like 10000% less impressing than uc berkeley (or even uni of toronto).
I know plenty of good women STEM grads in all sorts of fields. There are a few great women mathematicians not a whole lot compared to men but they do exist. The big issue is that we are dealing with the tails of the math ability distribution between various groups (sex, ethnicity, etc.). Anybody that is a competent engineer, mathematician, etc. is already way out in the tail compared to the general pop. Now start counting folks that actually push the state of the art in any of those fields, those folks are way, way out in the tail of the tail. The farther out you go the more you select for men.
In my engineering classes I noted only men. Why I wondered why, I got told women simply weren't interested in 'things'. I read that infant boys are intrigued by bright flashy objects and girls appreciate faces. So perhaps many of us drift into roles defined by biology. But I have had female engineers who worked with me, rare indeed. They often had a different emotional mindset that brought a perspective to projects that was useful generally, sometimes negative. Then again not all men are interested in understanding the terms of a differential equation and translating that into a important stress term to avoid breaking something. Trying to force people into roles they aren't interested in seems futile. Perhaps this "math" course may help students appreciate the beauty in math - hope so.
And yet we might still get an occasional Emmy Noether (for example), if we don't completely lock her out of the clubhouse. Mathematics is a human endeavor, not some platonic realm of pure reason practiced by disembodied beings of pure logic. Treating people fairly and respecting their real accomplishments when they don't look like the in-group is hard enough without this pernicious affirmative activism putting its thumbs on the scales in everybody's eyes. These people genuinely have no idea the damage they're doing.
h/t to Jordan Peterson for this take.
I am not a mathematician but am offended as a woman. On a mathematician, and on no other professional, should stand a gender or a colour. We are all humans and should be respected as such. That univ lost all respect