I said calculus, specifically, and was not trying to say it’s useless, by any means, but that it’s overvalued with respect to how it’s perceived within how it’s taught. There are absolutely a ton of things we wouldn’t have today without it. Said nothing of math in general, which is a critical life skill, as is logic, and I own a copy of Euclid’s Elements myself. My choice of tone was not the best, I’ll grant you. It is a result of a derisive attitude I have toward mindsets like, “I don’t understand it, therefore it must be important.”
If someone wants to start showing applicability for it in more common use cases, I’d be all ears, because I actually enjoy the subject, though I never use it. It’s lack of usefulness does make it overvalued for me, as a non-engineer/statistician who could easily “plug and chug” if a use case did ever show up (which I would have to at this point).
As is, a lot of the other subjects mentioned in this thread that are entirely neglected, do have much more value, because “applicability”, particularly in widespread societal use, is the key valuation metric of what I was getting at, and I’m a very big fan of the 80/20 rule.
I very honestly think a lot of the subjects we cover here on a regular basis are more important than calculus as well. None of that is to say that it doesn’t have its place, or is without any merit within its spheres of applicability.
I said calculus, specifically, and was not trying to say it’s useless, by any means, but that it’s overvalued with respect to how it’s perceived within how it’s taught. There are absolutely a ton of things we wouldn’t have today without it. Said nothing of math in general, which is a critical life skill, as is logic, and I own a copy of Euclid’s Elements myself. My choice of tone was not the best, I’ll grant you. It is a result of a derisive attitude I have toward mindsets like, “I don’t understand it, therefore it must be important.”
If someone wants to start showing applicability for it in more common use cases, I’d be all ears, because I actually enjoy the subject, though I never use it. It’s lack of usefulness does make it overvalued for me, as a non-engineer/statistician who could easily “plug and chug” if a use case did ever show up (which I would have to at this point).
As is, a lot of the other subjects mentioned in this thread that are entirely neglected, do have much more value, because “applicability”, particularly in widespread societal use, is the key valuation metric of what I was getting at, and I’m a very big fan of the 80/20 rule.
I very honestly think a lot of the subjects we cover here on a regular basis are more important than calculus as well. None of that is to say that it doesn’t have its place, or is without any merit within its spheres of applicability.