Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Socialist Math Textbook Exercises
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2384 ^ | William M. Briggs

Posted on 05/16/2010 6:16:27 AM PDT by mattstat

You know how bad math classes have become. What makes it worse is that politics have crept into the classroom. Here is an example of an actual math-quiz problem, quoted in Foreign Policy (linked from a story we did two years ago):

In 2004, a bread roll cost 40 cents. For the wheat that went into it, the farmer received less than 2 cents. What do you think about that?

This question might have preserved some semblance to math had it required the student to do some figuring. Where’s the math? I’m not even sure what the politics are, since five percent of the finished, full-retail price goes to the farmer, which is pretty good...

With that in mind, I have begun the creation of highly relevant math problems. The situations are of both world and local importance.

1. Grand socialist (of both the national and international varieties) schemes were directly responsible for the deaths of at least 150 million, over roughly a 100-year period. If the average height (including babies and the tall) is 66 inches, and you stacked those bodies end-to-end, you could reach about 156,250 miles. Now, the moon is about 240,000 miles away. Assuming the same kill rate, how many more years of grand socialist rule would we need to (A) reach the moon, and (B) return safely to Earth?

(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...


TOPICS: Politics; Science
KEYWORDS: math; socialism; textbooks

1 posted on 05/16/2010 6:16:28 AM PDT by mattstat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: mattstat

“In 2004, a bread roll cost 40 cents. For the wheat that went into it, the farmer received less than 2 cents. What do you think about that?”

I think the person who asked the question is a superficial ignorant imbecile.

It’s classic kneejerk liberal mentality. They choose to ignore the really small (though essential) portion the wheat actually plays in the whole scheme of producing a bread roll. Ie, Tansportation, processing to flour, more transporation,added ingredients, more processing and baking, (governmental scrutiny all along the way), packaging, inspection, marketing, more transportation, retail or food service cost of sales, etc etc.

I’ve only touched the surface. Too bad the fellow who asked that question is writing textbooks with obviously no real world experience whatsoever.


2 posted on 05/16/2010 6:36:52 AM PDT by traderrob6
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: traderrob6

The value chain is a good point.

The other important underlying point is, for socialists and progressives, as in this example, every science becomes a social question.

Math questions have social answers. Logic questions have social answers. Science questions have social answers. Observe the carefully crafted term: “climate ‘science’ “. Everything has a social answer.

“Why did the chicken cross the road?

Because he was being oppressed, it was to join a general strike with the brother workers on the other side.”

What at first seems a farcical bad habit of a desperate ideology is actually much more dangerous than that. Its a 1984-like attempt to redraw human knowledge along revisionist and biased lines at the fundamental logical level. And it is a systematic habit of a number of otherwise intelligent and capable people, who have been programmed in this mode of spurious thought to such an extent that there is a breakdown in the basic ability to think. The easiest way to counter this is to insist on reasonable explanations for phenomena. Ayn Rand had the best counter to this false way of thinking. From wikipedia:

“According to Rand, attaining knowledge beyond what is given in perception requires both volition (or the exercise of free will) and adherence to a specific method of validation through observation, concept-formation, and the application of inductive and deductive logic. A belief in, say, dragons, however sincere, does not oblige reality to contain any dragons. For anything that cannot be directly observed, a process of ‘proof’ identifying the basis in reality of the claimed item of knowledge is necessary in order to establish its truth.

Objectivism rejects both faith and ‘feeling’ as sources of knowledge. Rand acknowledged the importance of emotion in human beings, but she maintained that emotions are a consequence of the conscious or subconscious ideas that a person already accepts, not a means of achieving awareness of reality. ‘Emotions are not tools of cognition.’ “


3 posted on 05/16/2010 6:54:41 AM PDT by NYCslicker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson