The Math Myth

This article misses the point. The purpose of teaching math is not to memorize equations and solving methods, but to teach to approach problems in different ways.

As a developer and now a PM I've used complex math at many different times. I'm not solving in paper, but actually using it to solve real world problems.

In any case, statisticians are not interested in learning the truth, either, and the goal of their enterprise is not access to it.

I used to do IT work at a company where playing chess was popular among the techs and I decided to improve my skill.

The ways to improve:

   * Study tactics and strategy books
   * Study grandmaster games
   * Do two-to-mate or tactical chess problems
   * Review your own games and look for mistakes
   * Study openings (once you're more advanced)

If I spend months carefully studying the games of Kasparov, Fischer, Karpov etc., and my playing begins improving - how do I prove studying the greats carefully has improved my game? It might be "self-serving nonsense", as I can't draw a line between a move I do to some game I studied, like I can for an opening I memorized from a book. All I know is my general problem solving skills have somehow increased. I now see patterns I did not see before, and the correct path forward where before it was muddled, although I can't fully explain why. The only test is a sample comparison of those who do it versus a sample of those who don't.

Is better to have strong basic skills, than high-level skills.

I was (supposedly) of the bests student of my college. However, terrible at math? Of course.

My grandmother was able to do arithmetic in his head like nothing, yet I even have trouble with sum and rest.

She only have 3 years of education after kindergarten.

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In the first class of calculus in the University, the teacher make us do a division between a largueish number and a small number, at hand. We was something like 50 people. I don't remember anyone was able to perform it in time and give the correct result (or if somebody was able, surely was a very small number, I don't remember it well).

At that moment I know that the whole point of learn calculus will be a disaster.

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People not need to learn advanced math. They need to have strong, fluent understanding of the very basic (imagine if a developer can't perform without look basic list manipulations).

Like Bruce Lee say:

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

Advanced mathematics are rarely used for any professional position (including software engineering), but that doesn't mean that technical degrees are irrelevant. In my experience, such filters (like an MIT degree in CS) are invaluable for two reasons:

1. Math does teach you to think logically, which is an invaluable skill in all careers and essential in some (software engineering, specifically). He claims that "transference of mathematical skills is unsettled," but in my experience that's totally untrue: try teaching programming to a bunch of math majors and a bunch of sociology majors, see how learns more easily. Of course, math is definitely not the only way to learn this—philosophy is also an excellent way to learn logical thinking, and I wish that more CS departments required some basic philosophy courses.

That being said, what would be a better way to teach logic skills directly? The sports analogy is pretty bogus because athletes typically spend the majority of their time practicing things besides full games of their sport.

2. For almost any professional field, having smarter employees is an advantage. Unfortunately, administering and/or requiring IQ tests is cumbersome and potentially illegal. A technical degree from a top university is a convenient proxy.