I've not been on a college campus for a decade, but when I was a student the credit card companies continuously had reps on campus trying to get them to enroll.
Calc 1,2,3; Discrete Math; Linear Algebra; Game Theory.
Not to mention Physical Chemistry and Computational Biology.
Your insults are as impotent as your mind. So kindly STFU, or do you have any more "Johns Hopkins" comments to throw about? Cause we can talk about a lot more schools I was accepted at?
As a matter of fact, let's find out which bright and shining academical institution your ass was wiping the chairs at?
Dissipate
Diamond Member
- Jan 17, 2004
- 6,815
- 0
- 0
Talk about making assumptions. I won an award on the golden state exam in biology in high school.
But in any event, I don't want to waste my time on a subject that is shrouded in so much mystery. For all the billions of dollars spent on medicine, you guys don't even know how to stop the aging process. To make up for this all you guys have done is come out with a huge number of drugs to try to hold off the inevitable breakdowns in old people's bodies. Many of these old people smoke, drink, don't exercise and live unhealthy lifestyles in general. A good analogy is someone trying to keep an old engine with 200,000 miles on it running instead of buying a new car.
It also comes down to culture in the US. We are a culture of continually rising debt, it starts with the government and trickles down to the rest of population. How can anyone expect financial responsibilty by the masses who are constantly on mission to purchase the latest and greatest products that are marketed to death by corporations? I'm not saying our free market economy needs to change, but in fast changing, constantly evolving society a lot of people don't have the time or knoweledge to really examine the long term financial implications of putting themselves in debt. Bankrupcy reform is a good start, but it has to start at the ground level.
:roll:
All the billions of dollars wasted on mathematicians and physicists, and they don't even know how to travel back in time... or go faster than the speed of light.
All the billions of dollars wasted on computer scientists, and they can't even build an articial intelligence.
All the billions of dollars wasted on engineers, and they can't even build a cheap flying car, or a decent interplanetary spaceship.
Etc... Etc... Etc...
Do you even read your own comments, or do you just splash them onto the keyboard like excrement?
K-12 I was pushed to be moved into special classes for gifted students, pushed to be moved a grade ahead, etc. But I declined every opportunity (after trying them) because I absolutely hated the arrogant pricks in those classes and I thought it was more important to spend my days with people who actually care about me (my friends).
You missed out. Some of the best teachers are selected for the advanced classes. Could have helped out a lot in college. "friends" can be kept outside of school and there's no reason to care what others think about you in class. Get good grades and laugh at them.
Cerb
Elite Member
- Aug 26, 2000
- 17,484
- 33
- 86
While I disagree that anyone should have to go that far, as well, I also think it's a shame that such things aren't dealt with much earlier (as opposed to pure memorization for uses of trig functions, logs, special solving formulae, etc.)...but I've railed on such things in previous threads about education, too (mainly, the only thread in which I was the OP, here, so far).Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
Calculus is certainly a useful discipline - I will always remember my Grade-12 physics teacher calling it 'the math of life'. And he was right. I also think it's a disgrace that the last experience many people have with math is a pitty-pass through grade-10 algebra. But that really falls under choices and frerdoms, don't you think?
Your arbitrary ODE cut-off stinks quite heavily of 'that's the last thing we did in calc-2' and I can't see a reason that ODE, or Taylor series or that sort of thing needs to be strongly encouraged in the average person; it's complicated, obscure, and not really related to the ability to 'think mathematically'.
FTR, I took 2 courses that were roughly calc-2; one in engineering which was more like calc-2 and calc-3, but very light on theory (very mechanical, here's a problem / here's how you solve it), and one for economics (taught by an insane math professor) which was very similar to the pure-math calc-2 course. I did just fine in both courses
Dissipate
Diamond Member
- Jan 17, 2004
- 6,815
- 0
- 0
You obviously didn't understand what I am saying.
Engineers, physicists and computer scientists know relatively a LOT more about their disciplines than biologists/M.D.s.
If I took a list of seemingly basic questions about cells (the most basic building block of life) and I asked a panel of the foremost cell biology experts these questions they would say "We don't know." to the majority of them.
Hence, what I said about a discipline shrouded in mystery.
Furthermore, I would say that the methodology of physicsts, engineers and computer scientists is far more efficient than that of medical doctors. Any doctor's office I go into these days is choke full of old people. Something in their bodies broke down somewhere and there they are back at the doctor's office for the 50 billionth time to get some drug to 'fix' it. Over and over and over again these old people go back for treatment XYZ to fix busted body function ABC. It is no wonder healthcare consumes so much of the GDP.
I won't even mention the fact that you can't even build from scratch the very thing that you study. Engineers and computer scientists build what they study every day.
LOL... I like how you make that assumption. Did a little fairy come tell you that?
Firstly, thanks for explaining to me that cells are the most basic building block of life. I am sure that I have never heard that before.
Secondly, same goes for all natural scientists. Math is an applied science - it is not something we gather out of experimental evidence - it is a language for understanding the phenomena that other disciplines are trying to uncover.
Medical doctors, unless they do basic science, are not scientists... they are akin to car mechanics (just servicing a far far far more advanced vehicle). As far as "efficiency" goes, you again show no knowledge of even the basic concept of a scientific method, with which all scientists operate.
Engineers and computer scientists invent things that are far less complicated than what nature has to offer. When physicists construct a universe, and CS people construct an AI, then you'll have any ground. In the meanwhile, you still lose.
Dissipate
Diamond Member
- Jan 17, 2004
- 6,815
- 0
- 0
That's true to some extent but go to any doctor's office and tell me what you see there. It is most likely that you will find hundreds of old people who come out with a multitude of thousands of drugs.
Medicine truly is in a sad state of affairs for the reasons I mentioned above. Doctors cannot make anything but the most ridiculous attempts at getting at the root of people's medical problems.
It is like trying to keep a car with 200,000 miles on it running instead of buying a new car. Every other day you take the car into the shop to get it repaired for the next thing that breaks down.
Einstein called. He is crushed that you believe that cosmology and theoretical physics are worthless.
Dissipate
Diamond Member
- Jan 17, 2004
- 6,815
- 0
- 0
That's my point. My question is where is the car dealership?
Engineers and computer scientists have made a LOT more progress in their fields than medical researchers. How many years has medicine added to someone's life? How much faster are today's CPUs than the ones from a decade ago? I rest my case.
It'd be a really funny joke, if you weren't being serious.
Sorry, but you're a moron, and I am out of this discussion.
3chordcharlie
Diamond Member
- Mar 30, 2004
- 9,859
- 1
- 81
Originally posted by: Dissipate
Yes it does fall under choices and freedoms. But where is the choice when we have to take humanities and social science courses? They don't offer 'dumbed down' versions of those. If the HSS profs want us to take their pseudoscience B.S., their students ought to have to take an entire sequence of our stuff and NOT some dumbed down sequence.
Why is it arbitrary? ODEs are an important part of calculus. Pragmatically I think there should be a cutoff somewhere. I'm not claiming everyone should get a PhD in math.
FTR, I took 2 courses that were roughly calc-2; one in engineering which was more like calc-2 and calc-3, but very light on theory (very mechanical, here's a problem / here's how you solve it), and one for economics (taught by an insane math professor) which was very similar to the pure-math calc-2 course. I did just fine in both courses
You dropped out of an engineering program and went into a social pseudoscience only to end up going to work for the government? Talk about falling off track.
I don't work for the government, but you know that.
Nothing happened to my mathematical reasoning skills, either.
One thing you have to keep in mind are the ages of the two disciplines. Modern medicine/biology, as we know it, is very young compared to mathematics. Given the same time scale to work with, I'm sure medicine will advance much further than what we know today. Also, to use your own example, computers, and the advancements they have made in the last decade or two, are one end result of research into mathematics. Biologists, on the other hand, were *given* the end result - human beings, plants, other animals, even individual cells; take your pick - and asked to figure out how that result was achieved. So, in a lot of ways, the two really are apples and oranges.
and before anyone questions my credentials I make no claims to being an expert in either field. However, I went into college intent on studying biology (namely environmental science), and ended up working toward a BS in Computer science. So I do have *some* experience with them.
Nate
Dissipate
Diamond Member
- Jan 17, 2004
- 6,815
- 0
- 0
Frankly, I do not think medicine has much potential for improvement (except perhaps for diseases). I don't see any major breakthroughs until some other technology comes along and of course that will be the work of other scientists and engineers.
But there is a lot of $$$ in medicine. The old fogie chop shop business model is very lucrative. I sense a high probability that Meuge is in it for the $$$. He probably doesn't care for any real research that yields real results.
Scientist can't explain why an electron is attracted to a proton, they can only say that it is. Doctor's can't explain why cells just start dying or turn into cancerous cells, only that they do. What's the point?
I'm an electrical engineer and we can no more explain why nature act the way it does than a Doctor can explain why the human body behaves the way it does. So why do you think that engineers, physicist or any other scientest are doing so much more than doctors?
While that's true, at many public schools, the majority of liberal arts majors aren't very serious about school. Engineers can even out perform them in the arts. Some of those liberal arts majors were engineers their freshman year, but dropped due to the work that it requires.
Liberal arts classes these days allow people to goof off and graduate. If you try to pull that off in Engineering, you'll fail your classes and never graduate.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter