Why is innumeracy acceptable in our society?

It riles me where I see something like a current affairs or political show, (basic) stats are presented and someone says "I don't understand statistics, but [personal story follows]"

And when a person says they don't understand numbers there's laughter and nodding.

Imagine if I was on a panel and someone handed me a sheet of paper and I said that I can't read big words. Would hilarity ensue or would they assume I wasn't qualified to be commenting on *anything*?

People, if you are functionally innumerate, it's not funny. You have a 5th grade, at best, education. Be embarrassed and get help.

Self deprication can make you seem more relatable and not so high strung through.

It doesn't even have to be true.

@BigBoo. Self deprecation would be more "I don't understand numbers, so maybe I should pass on this and let someone more qualified comment."

What grinds my gears is the dismissive approach. "Oh. Data. LOL. Anyway, here's what happened to me last week so let's run with that."

Completely agree. Nothing to add.

It bothers me when people say things like “well, another day and I didn’t have to use any math!” (usually to a lot of agreement) because it gives this impression that math is something to be avoided.

You know I really think it comes down to how we were taught. Math is such an important concept but many of us were taught by grade school teachers who had to teach 5 other topics at the same time and probably didn’t understand it all that well themselves. How is one supposed to build on that as a foundation?

And I also think we too often blame ourselves when we don’t get something right away, and that just makes things worse because then we don’t even try. I think just believing in yourself, as corny as that sounds, is the most important first step to learning something.

This whole conversation is giving me anxiety about my paltry maths skills.

@devios1 people should learn that there's a difference between maths and arithmetic tbh

@inaba Well we pretty much all start with arithmetic, which is so concrete it’s arguably barely a math, but you need to grasp the concepts of how numbers combine before you will be able to understand how to abstract them with algebra. All the pieces fit together. The sad thing is too many people stop at arithmetic (and see that as “math”) and never get to experience the real beauty of mathematics that comes from the later abstraction.

The reason given here to ignore data is a bad one. But given how most of the time data is collected and presented in a way to support some kind of agenda that isn't yours, it is generally a good call to be very aware of its origin and weigh it accordingly in your decision making process.

@SanitizedOutput @devios1 I love/hate proofs. I love that you can manipulate existing given data to move closer to establishing what's to be shown. I fucking hate how easy it is to get stuck or overlook a small detail that could've moved you one step closer. Or just being ignorant about a definition which would be needed to solve the proof. ): currently learning proofs

The vast majority of people are disgusting, barely-evolved monkeys. I abhor their very existence.