Posted on 03/10/2020 5:23:47 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
MSNBC and math haven’t had a good week. A few days ago, talking heads made a third-grade mistake when hypothetically divvying up Bloomberg’s advertising budget among Americans. And on Monday, a guest virologist announced that 20% of Americans are going to die from the coronavirus, which is an embarrassing miscalculation...
...Fair's confusion arose because he forgot that it's only the very old (over 80 years) or very sick that will have a 15-20 percent mortality rate. The very aged, however, do not come close to making up 20 percent of the population. The 75-to-84-year-old cohort is only 4.4 percent of the population (and presumably that number is weighted towards those under 80), while the cohort over 85 is only 1.5% of the population.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Going back some decades, a lot of newspapers were staffed with experienced journalists. And they had real editors. And the news cycle moved at a reasonable pace. People actually checked their facts and made sure they had real sources, and verified that what would be published in the morning edition was somewhat reliable.
It was never perfect (”Dewey Beats Truman”) but people had some trust in the news and they weren’t crazy to feel that way.
Television came along and, for awhile, followed a somewhat similar model. Things started moving faster, and propaganda started to be more central, but people still felt the News was worth listening to.
But we are now at the point where good looking people get on the idiot box to spew absolute crap and are shocked when people laugh at them for being stupid.
The News business is an utter joke. Fake News is part of it. But low quality people being stupid is another part of it.
btt
So, math is some difficult, obscure process reserved for geniuses? Is the public so put off by thoughts of quantities that is unable to handle basic comparisons?
This is not difficult! math is not for Einsteins!
They may use the excuse that math is difficult, but they don’t convince me.
I worked with a guy around a decade ago, who had a daughter coming up for college entry. This prestigious Virginia university had a entry test requirement for English and math. The kid passed the English exam....failing the math exam. So the college said fine...they’d just mandate a high-school type math class among the requirements for the first year of college. It counted for zero credits toward the degree.
So I asked this guy...hadn’t the daughter taken math in high school? Yes. She’d passed with mostly ‘A’s’. So my comeback was...so did the high school just screw up and teach just marginal math? No answer, was the response.
“ will have a 15-20 percent mortality rate.”
A coworker of Fair’s said on Kennedy’s show (IIRC) that he had misspoke and had been trying to correct himself all day social media. Too bad so many actually get giddy over that number.
a million small children will die in America alone from abortion
“The very aged, however, do not come close to making up 20 percent of the population.”
Well then, if you do manage to live long enough, you will have a 20% chance of dying of it (until they find a cure). To keep things in perspective, the chances of dying, some day, from something, is pretty close to 100%.
Virtually everyone in the US is really, really pleased with their local schools. They are lucky, you see. Their town has an excellent school system. They feel bad for all of the neighboring towns which have such troubled school systems. The state of education is just so terrible. But, you know, I live in one of the lucky towns which still has an excellent school system. It ought to be excellent — I certainly pay a lot in taxes!
But, of course, this is all denial. All of the government schools are bad. Even in your town.
It’s more fundamental than that. The “news” business drives out anyone who exhibits any signs of healthy skepticism, regardless of one’s political orientation.
For me, math IS difficult. I don’t think that I innately lack ability, but I was subjected to some very poor teaching during a critical time in my elementary school years.
After saying that, I don’t think that these “math errors” are really due to a difficulty with numbers. What I’m seeing is a difficulty with critical thinking, period. Knowing when things don’t “add up” doesn’t require great math skills, just logic and common sense (which is rather uncommon).
Here is the up to the minute data
116,000 cases world wide. 105,000 mild or recovered.
4089 deaths
Average age of the dead, 80 years old.
Freepers stop being part of the problem. Drop the drama queen hysteria and the shameless lying and put your grown up pants on finally
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
116,000 is just the number of people tested and confirmed to have the virus or to have had it and now show antibodies to it.
The actually number is probably 10x this amount. All these people are just fine and walking around at Wal-Mart and buying tons of toilet paper and water.
IF you really want to rectify that, Khan Academy will accomplish that. Mrs. BN, at the age of 64, was working on-line to complete her Bachelor of Science degree. She failed her College Algebra assessment test and was required to take Remedial Math. Nearly 50 years after her last Math class!
Khan Academy and a few other YouTube math videos made it possible for her to pass all three math classes and graduate Magna Cum Laude!
(How could someone that smart marry a klutz like me?)
FREE!
The talking head are simple nice looking people who can read a teleprompter. They understand nothing they read. Have you ever met a journalism major in college? They are obnoxious and just plain dumb.
It has been my experiences that kids can get good grades, but actually remember nothing from the previous year. This is the result of cramming for tests. I inherited juniors and seniors who couldn’t work ohms law problems: E = IR.
60 million.
A simple calculator can easily circumvent arithmetic issues, of course. Mathematical processes require a little finesse. If you want to learn math, and it is good for your brain, just find tutorial materials in books or online. Teaching yourself is actually better than classes.
You are a pushover for the media, Chicken Little.
It’s been proven that once someone has a big stash of toilet paper the chances of getting Corona go to zero.
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