Riffing off you thoughts, I’ve found that a great preponderance of “intellectuals” are innumerate as a toddler - ie, they have no mathematical training or education, they have no concept of numbers and are completely gullible in the face of someone spouting random statistics posing as facts, because they have no internal “gut check” on the numbers.
One of my favorites from the early 90’s was debating someone on gun crime stats in California. This guy (a liberal arts major, well read in “the classics” no doubt) popped out with a stat that XYZ policy resulted in a reduction of 168% of crome stat ABC.”
At this, I looked like someone had just passed gas in public. I asked “After the first 100% reduction, where does the next 68% reduction come from?”
He was completely non-plussed, and repeated his claim. I said “Look, when you reduce something by 100%, it is ALL GONE. How can you reduce something more when you’ve completely eliminated it?!”
The audience sat up and agreed with me, and the ‘intellectual’ suddenly realized he was out to lunch - and then some.
Yet, until I pointed it out, this guy had the bit firmly in his teeth and was wow’ing the crowd.
This is the sort of thing that engineers crucify fellow engineers for. You’d never hear an engineer or scientist (especially a physics guy) pop out with this sort of mistake, because if they did in front of other engineers/scientists, they’d be crucified immediately.
Yet “intellectuals” who think “I don’t need calculus, my man, I’ve read Yeats!” have the public completely bamboozled into thinking they’re smart because they’re such suave talkers.
In todays’ public policy environment, we need more engineers/scientists not only running for office, we need more of them to step up to the plate in educating the public by any means possible. Thanks to the NEA, today’s school and college graduates are just woefully innumerate.
s is the sort of thing that engineers crucify fellow engineers for. You’d never hear an engineer or scientist (especially a physics guy) pop out with this sort of mistake, because if they did in front of other engineers/scientists, they’d be crucified immediately.
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On the contrary, it is quite common now to read things such as,”500 times smaller” or “500 percent less” on FR and some who post this nonsense identify themselves as engineers or math majors. I personally have been verbally abused on this forum at times because I protested against such nonsense. I have often been met with the standard attitude of,”You know what I mean”. I fail to see why I should know what someone means when they cannot be bothered to say what they mean.