Teaching Mathematics
The bloggers at Effect Measure are doing a magnum opus blog miniseries on introducing math models in medicine and public health (or rather, one particular model) to the general public. It’s a very admirable and difficult thing that they’re tackling. Explaining mathematics to the general public is hard, because most people stop listening as soon as they hear the word “mathematics,” Just at the door, they stop without entering, not knowing how much they’re missing out.
It’s kind of sad, actually. We lament over the fact that some people can’t read, but we don’t always lament over people not being able to do math. In fact, for some circles, it’s a point of perverse pride. “Oh, I can’t do math” is an acceptable phrase in, say, literary circles, when in reality we should be as shocked about so-called “educated people” saying that as when any “educated” person would say “Oh, I can’t read.” To grasp the essential, math isn’t any harder than reading. At the highest level, math is quite difficult, but so is, say, reading James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Most of us don’t need to get anywhere near that level to do useful things. But people right now need a push to get to the mathematical ability level that one would consider appropriate for the “educated.”
Thus, Effect Measure’s magnificent foray into educating the public. They’re very good writers and teachers, and I highly suggest it to anyone who’s afraid of the math in science. So far, they have five articles in the “modeling antiviral resistance” series discussing one paper on pandemic influenza and antiviral resistance a little bit at a time (through 16 projected blog posts!), aimed to the general audience with no prior experience necessary:
I. What is a model?
II. A modeling paper
III. Introduction. What’s the paper about?
IV. The essential assumption
Sidebar: Thinking mathematically
It’s kind of sad, actually. We lament over the fact that some people can’t read, but we don’t always lament over people not being able to do math. In fact, for some circles, it’s a point of perverse pride. “Oh, I can’t do math” is an acceptable phrase in, say, literary circles, when in reality we should be as shocked about so-called “educated people” saying that as when any “educated” person would say “Oh, I can’t read.” To grasp the essential, math isn’t any harder than reading. At the highest level, math is quite difficult, but so is, say, reading James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Most of us don’t need to get anywhere near that level to do useful things. But people right now need a push to get to the mathematical ability level that one would consider appropriate for the “educated.”
Thus, Effect Measure’s magnificent foray into educating the public. They’re very good writers and teachers, and I highly suggest it to anyone who’s afraid of the math in science. So far, they have five articles in the “modeling antiviral resistance” series discussing one paper on pandemic influenza and antiviral resistance a little bit at a time (through 16 projected blog posts!), aimed to the general audience with no prior experience necessary:
I. What is a model?
II. A modeling paper
III. Introduction. What’s the paper about?
IV. The essential assumption
Sidebar: Thinking mathematically
