"Maths, in university, is useless bull..."

[notyoueither]

Once again, Asher, not everyone is the perfect you. It might surprise you, but some people don't think much about such topics unless they are directed to it.

[notyoueither]

At any rate, most basic courses available to all undergrads are pretty simple stuff. They are there to stimulate thought and provide a broad base of learning for people who want a good education. You may pick from any number of topics that may be of interest to you while completing an undergrad degree. I am sure that many people find many of them to be quite useless in all the wisdom that their 20 or 24 years have granted them.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Asher
You think the people behind the Enron scandal didn't know what they did was "unethical"? They sure as hell did. Did they care? No. Would teaching them about ethics change anything? No.

I am not sure about that. The problem with many criminals is they don't think what they did was wrong (and/or unethical). Do you think Charles Manson realises what he did was atrocious? Hell no.

[BeBMan]

I think the terrorists know they shouldn't kill infidels. They just do not admit it.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
They are?

Yes. At least in the UK, maths graduates have some of the most positions open to them, and earn more than graduates of most other degrees.

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
Quote by me. Maths at high-school level will get you into useful subjects like computer science and philosophy, maths at university just leads to scientists making better toasters.

Surely that's civil engineering?

Originally posted by Agathon
Mathematics is something that a few people need to do for some of the time. Critical thinking and moral argument is something that everyone does, most of the time.

And maths doesn't teach logic? In the UK, most philosophy students have to take formal logic courses. Most mathematicians take formal logic courses. At Oxford, it's actually the same course, run by both faculties, for both sets of students. The rest of the time, mathematicians learn the actual maths, rather than the style of thinking, and the philsophers read and debate texts.

Originally posted by Asher
And I can say, if you learned anything in these types of courses, you do not belong in university.

What about someone who's a wizz at a science, but can't do any critical thinking type thing. Do they not belong there. They've pigeonholed themselves, but they may just be great at that one thing, and thus belong there.

Originally posted by BeBro
I think the terrorists know they shouldn't kill infidels. They just do not admit it.

[Whaleboy]

Educational sociopathy

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by notyoueither
It's sort of funny that after Enron, Tyco, Iraq, Clinton, Rather, blah, blah, blah, people would be questioning the benefit of teaching more people that ethics is an actual word in the English language, let alone teaching them about what appropriate ethics are.

You think that the Enron people thought what they were doing was "right"?

They just didn't care.

[LulThyme]

Originally posted by Asher

KH is into physics, not computer science.

Something used very regularly (indeed, to the point of you-should-know-this-like-arithmetic), is an example by which you clearly didn't understand -- the example that started this very thread.

You also need to be able to do most types of proof in your sleep -- mostly induction and reductio ad absurdum. You need to know how to do most types of calculus rather trivially (integration specifically), advanced set theory, linear algebra (working with matricies: eigenvalues, eigenvectors, computing normals, etc), harmonic series, LOTS of graph theory (reductions, cliques, etc), ... it's ridiculous to go on.

Computer Science is a form of applied mathematics. It's simply absurd to think you can do it with only high school math...

Asher is right.
There is a continuum between Cs and Mathematics.
CS is like very applied math.
Theoretical CS IS math.

The founders of CS were actually mathematicians (von Neumann and Turing for example).

almost all of math is regurlarly used by some people in theoretical CS.
Im talking about the people proving that new algorithms are faster etc....

[Pekka]

Yeah, but who would believe us, after all, we only actually do study that stuff, everybody just keeps insisting we shouldn't take math because it doesn't really help us. I guess I just keep being stupid and rack up those math courses.

[Kuciwalker]

They also forget how quantum mechanics is largely just math, two, and without that we wouldn't be posting on this forum right now.

[LulThyme]

Kuci I dont thing that anybody would argue that math is not useful for anybody.
Most of science is based on math.

[Ben Kenobi]

You think relativism is illogical?

It's self-refuting.

You cannot be a consistent relativist.

[Ben Kenobi]

Why should it surprise anyone that arts students succeed in the art of bull****?

Maybe it's because Ethics requires you to think of something besides numbers and figures for once?

They'll go on to be future liars and criminals, running our governments and deceiving the public. The scientists among us will go out and cure cancer and prolong the human lifespan and increase quality of life.

Right, and I suppose the scientists who are honest will get the most government pay.

Scientists are not more honest then lawyers, they are just better at covering things up, Mendel's thumb and all.

I do -- tell society what their money has done. You've used your philosophy courses and your degrees, to do manual labour?

Right. Well, that's only what I have been paid to do. My contribution to society is on a far deeper level than mere monetary compensation.

Heck, if you'll pay me to write full-time then that solves everything.

Society has invested tens of thousands of dollars on you and your education, and you squandered it with a degree and courseload that can get you a construction job.

Society has invested nothing. I paid for half of it myself, and all of my tuition portion of the degree. The rest of my costs, such as housing, my parent's covered.

So please, tell me what I have cost society through my education.

Finally, there's nothing wrong with manual labour. It's a valuable contribution to society. Everybody wants a nice place to live, and how can you have that without construction workers?

[Ben Kenobi]

And a technical writing course should be mandatory for all philosophers.

Actually, it does Philosophers some good to take a few writing courses, to make their ideas more understandeable.

Of course, some 'writing' courses teach jargon, but that's another matter.

[Ben Kenobi]

Because of course without a college course in ethics we're all just amoral beings drifting through life...

You telling me you wouldn't benefit from an ethics course?

You just flung a huge passage from Hume at me.

That's the sort of thing you study, and discuss.