Re: unnatural languages

On 13 Mar 2007 15:12:51 -0700, "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:1173823970.981242.310730@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in sci.lang:

On Mar 13, 4:53 pm, hru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Herman Rubin) wrote:

In article <YE68kkJnro9FF...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Richard Herring <richard.herr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

Most of the world's people have a very precise grasp of
basic arithmetic, and know exactly who owes whom and
how much, both in financial and moral terms.

I think you will find "basic arithmetic" not to be well
understood.

As you very well know, Richard is not using the term
"basic arithmetic" in the professional mathematician's
sense of some obscure division of mathematics, but in the
sense of adding, subtracting, mul;tiplying, and dividing.

I suspect that Herman's point is that being able to perform
the operations mechanically is not the same as understanding
them. And I have known a significant number of people who
didn't understand them well enough to balance a checkbook
without following a set of instructions by rote, though they
could do the operations well enough.

[...]

In statistics, they learn formulas, and apply them with
know idea of the limitations of the formulas, or the
desirability of using that formula in that situation.

If someone has some data, and just adds, subtracts,
multiplies, and divides almost at will, do you think
the result will be meaningful?

If the data are the prices of the goods in their shopping
cart, and they need to determine whether they have enough
cash in their wallet to pay for the goods plus the sales
tax, then absolutely yes.

No, they have to apply the *right* operation(s); they can't
'just add[], subtract[], multipl[y], and divide[] almost at
will'.

A vanishingly small portion of the population has any need
for anything more advanced.

True enough in respect of techniques; it's not clear that
it's still true in respect of certain concepts, though,
especially statistical concepts. Increasingly one needs a
little basic understanding as a matter of self-defense.

Brian
.

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