UK students apparently urged to drop mathematics

The BBC news website reported that UK students are being urged to drop mathematics because it’s too hard.

Apparently, the subject is considered ‘difficult’ and so students are not taking the subject in order to increase their overall A-level scores in order to get into university.

The interesting question is: why is this happening now? Has anything fundamentally changed in the type of mathematics being taught? When I went though high school (in NSW, Australia), I took 3 unit mathematics. for comparison, the entire four unit mathematics curriculum for HSC was taught in the first 1 – 2 months of my University level mathematics course.

Why is that comparison important?   If the students dropping maths to get a higher score want to do a science based degree, then they’ll need to do University-level maths. So at some point, they’ll be faced with some ‘hard’ learning to do.

Mathematics is the most fundamental of the sciences.  If you’re a reductionist (like me) , or even a soft reductionist, then you’ll know that physics, chemistry, computing and lots of biology reduces to mathematical equations describing natural phenomena.

If you don’t have a good understanding of maths, then how can you expect to have an understnading of the fundamentasl of your discipline.

Mathematics also underpins logic such as inference, deduction, induction, reasoning and critical thinking (these can eseentially be regarded as synonyms).

I think the most important thing for all educational institutions is to examine the passion for mathematics that the teachers themselves have (if they avoid maths, so will their students) and the content of the curriculum and pedagogical methods.   there are numerous methods to improve the quality of learning for students.  these techniques can improve the performance of students and nothing breeds success like success.

Mathematics (as well as language grammar) is essential for understanding the world around us.  You just need to look at the quiz shows and pubs and venues with gaming to see how poor people are at understanding statistics and the odds of winning.

The next time your kids complain about maths, consider how important it is.  consider how your own attitudes shape those of your children and take a look at the quality of teaching.  As parents, we have considerable responsibility to ensure our children are well equipped – the jobs of the future rely more and more on information, critical reasoning and judgement.  Mathematics is critical to develop these skills.

User interfaces in science fiction movies

This interesting article showcases user interfaces in science fiction movies. I particularly liked the image of Star Trek’s Scotty speaking into the computer mouse in Star Trek IV (near the end). It’s been a while since I’ve watched that movie -I’ll have to dust it off over this Easter long weekend. Now where can I get me some of that transparent aluminium?

Intelligent Design vs. Evolution – The madness continues

I find it staggering that in the face of overwhelming evidence for evolution that it is rejected by 48% of Americans. There is just so much evidence to support evolution, yet 52% of Americans reject it, even so there is no evidence hard for Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design proponents demand fossil evidence, and even when it does come up (dinosaurs and birds, fish and land animals, homo erectus and modern humans), reject it out of hand.

As a psychologist, I am always fascinated by people’s ability to only see evidence that supports their original position and vehemently reject evidence to the contrary. It’s a well known phenomenon called confirmation bias – but what amazes me is how easy it is for people to do it. There are probably millions of published scientific articles on evolution that demonstrate that it is not actually a theory. Evolution is a fact, not a theory. By perpetuating the view that it is a theory, it’s easy for people to reject it as just a theory and that another ‘theory’ is equally valid. I’d like to see a million scientific published articles proving Intelligent Design. Scientific American has a great article on the myths of intelligent design and creationism.

What’s even more disturbing about Intelligent Design is that it has a place in some school curricula. It is not a surprise that there is a decline in critical reasoning when children accept principles and ideas based on faith and belief, rather than reason.

NASA shuts down its futuristic think tank

New Scientist features a story on NASA shutting down its think tank. This think tank focusses on the fringe and far-out ideas related to spaceflight and aeronautics. It receives around $USD 4M per annum – not a very big budget at all.

As a business owner-operator, I can understand the importance of trimming fat from bureaucratic and inefficient parts of organisations, but cutting R&D is probably one of the most shortsighted things you can do.

I spend around 10% of sales per year on R&D (around $AUD 250,000) and I use its outputs to develop new products and services that help me differentiate PTG Global from other firms in the market.

Back to NASA. Perhaps NASA should seek matched funding from industry? The recent growth of philanthropy from numerous dot.com and IT millionaires and billionaires and the interest in space flight suggests there would be many people interested in doing this.

If I had the funds, it’s something I would invest in. Investment could even be sought using private equity style funds, with investments from $30K. on this basis, i would definitely invest in it.  The think tank would also need to shift its thinking to include the commercialisation of its R&D to provide investors a return in their investment.

As an avid fan of Star Trek, space exploration is the final frontier and something we should not lose focus on. It’s too easy to look inward and forget about the bigger things that can cause far-reaching societal change.

Virtual Supernova

Space.com features a story on astronomers who have created a 3-D simulation of a supernova.  Very, very cool.