Udhay Shankar N wrote: > The Washington Post on the "value" of algebra. While I have some > sympathy for the individuals mentioned, I do not agree with this > position, and I think that one can hardly be surprised at the drop in > scientific literacy in the US (inter alia) if this is a widespread > mindset. The repercussions are left as an exercise for the reader.
A lot of people have no further use for maths (let alone algebra, calculus and whatever else) after school than to balance a checkbook. Let us not even speak of nuclear physics or organic chemistry. And they can be journalists. They can even be good programmers. They can be lots of other things that just dont need any of that stuff. Let us not confuse that with the debate on intelligent design. But there should be at least some option for people to forgo advanced science / math courses if necessary. And that can be achieved even without teaching intelligent design, and wont automatically make them believers of vague theories about how the world was created because God decided that he had a week of spare time that he wanted to use productively, or that the milky way was created because Ra was feeling horny, didnt find a handy female deity nearby and so decided on a bit of masturbation ... Algebra delenda est.
