More alarming are the university courses in science and accounting that do not include mathematics.

“….mathematical literacy (at whatever level), which carries with it a sense for logical rigour and formal coherence, helps one to better understand and express the rational framework of worldviews.” If this is the central conclusion of this piece (well, it does come at the end) then it’s not really much use. I loved maths when I was studying it and happen to see the world through a kind of mathematical, certainly quantitative, prism. My own scientific research always depended on some basic level of mathematics (but nowhere near that needed in, say, cosmology).

So I have no trouble in accepting that mathematical literacy is a good thing. But Dr Virsik seems to be saying more. He is offering a kind of prescription, or recommendation, which says “if you want to understand things better then become mathematically literate”.

To me that sounds like “if you want to be better at basketball, become taller”. And that’s the problem. Being mathematically literate is the privilege of the few who have either the quantity or the kind of brainpower needed. I’ll leave the detail to the neuroscientists. An elitist view? Of course. Can anyone or everyone become mathematically literate? Of course not. In a place where secondary education is universal (like Australia), how many adults could become mathematically literate if they just tried, but don’t yet realise it? Not many I suspect, but someone might try to find out. A good PhD topic. Till the results come in, I shall view the matter like in the old joke. “Can you play the piano?” “Dunno, never tried”

I would not have started the quoted paragraph with “I even believe that …” if it were meant to be the “central conclusion” of the article. It was a personal view and adding “(at whatever level)” relativised the term “mathematical literacy” (taken from Wilson) so as not to sound “elitist”.

For Tombee; It depends on what level you are imagining. In the old days the South Australian leaving certificate (I forgot its title) was not moderated, so that anyone who wanted a really high score would do double maths, physics and chemistry, where you could, at least in principle, get 400/400 in four subjects. A very high proportion of matriculants did exactly that, which made the science sides of the Adelaide universities very strong. When all subjects were moderated, that was no longer necessary, so the demand for maths and science fell off quite quickly. Howard Gardner argues that given desire, training and encouragement, almost anyone can be highly competent at anything of this kind. I think he's right.

This is just so true.

Today we have B Sc graduates who would have real trouble with high school math B, & would not even understand the questions in a math C paper.

A case study. My daughter signed up to do a combined Bachelor of Science bachelor of Education degree with one of our universities, chosen for it's access from home. Silly girl. All 12 kids doing the course planned on a math/science teaching career.

When she & the 11 others arrived to start they were advised the institution did not have the physics capacity to run the course, & they were transferred to an Environmental science course. [The rumor was a tenured physics professor was drunk too often to teach.] Environmental science would only qualify them to teach biology.

After looking at the course notes, she acquired a set of year 2 notes. We discovered that at the end of the second year of a B Sc at this Goldcoast establishment, the students would be required to be almost, but not quite at the standard required of junior high school kids. This is supposed to be a science degree. Some graduates consider themselves scientists.

She transferred to a "proper" university for the second semester, & had a hell of a job catching up on the math they'd done by then.

In my experience you can't understand anything much more than how to mow the lawn without some math.

It would certainly improve our knowledge of everything if those posing as journalists today were required to have at least senior high math & science. It would certainly make it harder for many conmen to make the news papers & TV broadcasts, with their bull dust.

Good article, i agree with most of it. However, the problem comes in applying mathematics to complex biological systems such as are found in neuroscience. My experience of modellers of even the simplest system is that the model often takes on a life of its own. The difficulty is deciding how accurately the model describes a complex system whose mechanics are unknown. There was a flurry of enthusiasm for maths in the period 1640 to 17something when it was supposed, after Descartes that maths would be the new language that would be able to describe everything. New languages were invented that were as close to the mathematical as possible, even proofs for the existence of God! All of these attempts failed to advance our knowledge either of language or theology. Of course, if you are a theoretical physicist maths are the basis of your work. But the use of mathematics can produce wrong conclusions. For example, mathematically, time looks the same as the three dimensions. This lead to the idea that time was just another dimension in what was called the space-time continuum. But anyone can see that time is totally unlike a physical dimension for obvious reasons.
Peter Sellick