Pernicious Nonsense
By Crispin Sartwell
Once again we prepare to entrust our children to
professional educators, kissing the upturned,
trusting faces and waving goodbye with a certain
relief and a certain anxiety. The anxiety is well-
placed, for this year once again our children will be
learning material that is completely baseless, that is
grounded entirely on the new age, politically-
correct consensus of well-meaning fools.
I refer, of course, to mathematics.
Mathematics is a sort of necromancy or pagan
religion. It has no basis in fact or in theory. It is
concerned entirely with entities of which it has no
clear conception.
I was scrounging around in my dictionary the other
day, looking up "sforzando," when I came across
the following definition of "seven": "the cardinal
number between 6 and 8." Now it is not hard to see
that this will not help you understand the meaning of
"seven" unless you already understand the
meaning of "six" and "eight," which will themselves
only be comprehensible in terms of three further
numbers, including seven itself.
Being curious about this apparent emptiness of the
simplest notions of mathematics, I posted a contest
on my website, soliciting defensible definitions of
"seven." What I got was a lecture in the philosophy
of mathematics from Princeton professor and Slate
columnist Jordan Ellenberg, and a facetious rant
from a grad student named Jesse Gutierrez, which
began "Dude. It's a number. What do you want?"
Everyone else seemed suddenly to realize that they
had no idea how to say what "seven" means.
Ellenberg's lecture was fascinating, and it detailed a
number of approaches that one might take to
solving the problem, each of them extremely
difficult, obscure, and elaborate, and each of them
absolutely incompatible with all the others. It was
clear, first, that people have been working on the
problem for about 2,500 years, and, second, that
they haven't gotten any nearer to a solution than
they were when Pythagoras asserted that things
like rocks and stars were actually made of
numbers, whatever that might mean.
Perhaps you are thinking that you know quite
clearly what "seven" means, and you are even now
in a rather irritated way counting out fingers or
something. However, it is easy to see that "seven"
does not actually refer to anything in the world. Add
one raindrop to another to another to another to
another to another to another and you get one
raindrop. Do the same with rabbits and you get
4,601.
You could show me the representation of a triangle,
but of course no one has ever seen a triangle as
defined by "geometry," which is bounded by "lines"
which have no width.
Of course, everyone thinks they know what seven
is. But there was a time when everyone knew what
a demon was, or that the world was composed of
four elements.
Famously, the theologians of the middle ages
debated how many angels could dance on the head
of a pin. But they had no idea what the phrase "how
many" meant, much less what sort of thing an angel
was.
Unless and until mathematics can give a better
account of itself, we must regard it as so much
gobbledygook, and we must protect our children
from such superstitious nonsense. Mathematics
represents just the kind of loose, empty thinking
that characterizes so many of the ephemeral
fashions in education these days.
To expose kids to mathematics is the height of
irresponsibility.
In the hallowed words of the great role model
Whitney Houston, I believe that children are our
future. You and I must join together with millions of
other concerned parents in a movement to remove
mathematics from all schools, public and private,
secular and parochial. We owe it to the children.

though the guy gat some point sha, but it doesn't stop me from solving & rocking my darling "MATIMATIKS"

guess the dude is still a learner , not realizing that even the media he used in passing this crap is a function of mathematical principles / applications

#team.maths.

D guy wan just show himself...

#shit

Mathematics is the bedrock of science. Without the knowledge of math, we are back to the stone age.

yorex2011: D guy wan just show himself...

no mind nam. ... maybe ehn don fail maths taya..
just saying all those to relieve hs pain

*smh*..

thelastmediator: Mathematics is the bedrock of science. Without the knowledge of math, we are back to the stone age.

just on point .

He's simply telling us he was a failure at school.

Just another lazy student looking for an excuse not to learn.

#team maths!

I don't hate Maths. We just never understand each other...

Well, i get the guy's point but maths shouldn't be abolished in schools..

Alamation: I don't hate Maths. We just never understand each other...

God is a mathematician bro , the cosmos , nature & all existing entities created, came to be via mathematical codes , patterns & phenomena . So if we were in created in the image of God ( implies we posses his DNA ) . reasons why most folks don't /finds it hard to understand math could attribute to miscellaneous variables , could include Fear , poor foundation , laziness , mediocrity-set , e.t.c which after, they tag themselves the "anti-maths squad " saying math is the worst subject ever introduced to man kind .

Guess am just a baby mathematician striving to know more & possibly decode some troubling enigma that had confronted humanity for ages , though ingenious mathematicians (past /present & possibly future ) had /are working round the clock in that regards .

permit me to shock you a bit , by saying mathematics is supernatural ( some aspects are mythical & gat occult implications , especially geometry ) hmm..( surprised .? ) people like Pythagoras, Kepler & Euclid will tell you more . math is far beyond what you think is. hidden facts / implications exist under geometry , calculus , topology , numerology ( esp. pi ) , e. t.c

OK , its needless to border asking why . The truth is that both positive & negative spirits inspired math ( as known " no positive existence without a corresponding negative existence" ) which is why today we have both positive & negative inventions / innovations ( as in science & technology ) or positive inventions used for negatives purposes thereby driving our globe amok.

Don't worry , everything in this world is bleeped up ( including i & you ) & and has been compromised owing to inevitable anomalies which some at this point , goes beyond redemption , only time shall unfold the realities of tomorrow's hope .

However , to exponentially break new grounds / to make the world science / technologically advanced ( as in solving humanity's enigma & aid reduce superfluous labour) , we couldn't but bequeath this to mathematical advancements & research .

AFTER ALL IS SAID AND DONE ONLY A RIGHTEOUS NATION CAN PROLIFICALLY PROSPER & BLOSSOM , WHICH IS WHY WE NEED TRUE CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST / MATHEMATICIANS ( possessing the true perfect DNA of GOD!!) .

hope this little write up impart .

its always 1love.

Don't have the goddam time to read all those. Check out my signature

OMG.........I can't read this for goodness sake!!!!#too time consuming and ask me, I will tell you#

OP, so you went ahead to smoke that thing! SMH

sammoe: OP, so you went ahead to smoke that thing! SMH

what thing sir. .?

I keep on reiterating this, though I'm not supporting Mathematics should be expunge but the only maths I enjoy is the one involving money and without decimal points. Thanks.

none of you got his point..what he meant was...why would seven mean a stone and a stone and a stone a stone a stone a stone and a stone...its stupid really..or why would two mean..a stone and a stone...its really confusing..you have a bundle of many stuffs and you assigned a number..like Albert Einstein said...."he stop understanding relativity when mathematicians began to explain it with maths" maths has no place in real life..its abstract to be precise...and some unintelligent ones that dont understand what i just posted will beqin quoting and saying i flunked maths...we call raw thinking maths..its stupid.

Crack your ribs


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z8XZLqIMmw

I don't like mathematics...lemme not use hate before una begin rate my intellectual capacity . Studyin a science or engineering course without maths is like tryin to sail a ship without a sea.

ahkenaten: none of you got his point..what he meant was...why would seven mean a stone and a stone and a stone a stone a stone a stone and a stone...its stupid really..or why would two mean..a stone and a stone...its really confusing..you have a bundle of many stuffs and you assigned a number..like Albert Einstein said...."he stop understanding relativity when mathematicians began to explain it with maths" maths has no place in real life..its abstract to be precise...and some unintelligent ones that dont understand what i just posted will beqin quoting and saying i flunked maths...we call raw thinking maths..its stupid.

lol @bolded, ever heard of fibonnaci sequences?

Olamyyde:
lol @bolded, ever heard of fibonnaci sequences?

i see Fibonacci's number as being arrested and kidnapped into 'maths' maths did not create Fibonacci...it has been in existence before Fibonacci himself was born..in nature, i.e honey comb and and stuffs..so a guy stumble upon it...they named it after him and called it math..thereby complicating the whole shit.

i dnt even get d writer's point exactly. Maths is abstract but asking to remove it from curriculums is a whole different matter...it will deform any technological advances we are already having. Even this forum was coded with the use of mathematical principles. Maths no be small tin o