[stormer]

I did a quick inventory of the people I know, and they're a pretty smart group. But with the exception of one who has a PhD in mathematics, none could even begin to write a geometry book. So your point is?

[RobbyS]

One chapter would include what Pascal did on conic sections when he was age 15. One thing that everyone relies on is how the material world seems to match our mathematical models. Indeed that insight is where modern science begins. Whether the mathematics originates with us, or we simply recognize patterns inherent in the material world the human being has to be taken as sui generis. The “thinking” of animals is perhaps no more than anthropmorphism, hardly different from the product of the Disney Studios.