<story><title>The Math Myth</title><url>http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2016/09/the_math_myth.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nostrademons</author><text>This largely matches my experience - as a software engineer, I spend probably &amp;lt; 1% of my time doing math more complex than arithmetic and simple mathematical logic - but it&amp;#x27;s missing something crucial:&lt;p&gt;In a market economy, basically all returns come from &lt;i&gt;marginal&lt;/i&gt; gains.  The vast majority of your lifetime income will come from a dozen or fewer opportunities that you happen to be in a position to take advantage of, whether it&amp;#x27;s a new job offer or a high-profile project you volunteer for or a startup that takes off.  You will qualify for those opportunities based on the skills you have &lt;i&gt;that other people don&amp;#x27;t have&lt;/i&gt;.  They will make money for the organization because of features or insights that your competitors lack.  Your customers will buy it because it lets them do things that they couldn&amp;#x27;t otherwise do.&lt;p&gt;The stuff that you and everyone else spends 99% of your time doing is economically irrelevant.  You probably still need to do it (though if you can program a computer to do it, you have a huge leg up on competitors), but it doesn&amp;#x27;t get you anywhere.&lt;p&gt;Ironically, this is one of those insights that a good understanding of math will give you.  The common-sense understanding is that we should be teaching what the majority of people are doing; the data says that we should be teaching what the majority of people are &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; doing but desire the results of.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Bahamut</author><text>There is more to math than just calculations, algebra, geometry, etc. Logic, and reasoning through choices &amp;amp; the effects of those choices are vital math skills as well, and for many people in math, they don&amp;#x27;t manifest until one takes a few rigorous proof-based classes, where one often sees new approaches to arriving at concepts they know, and how to properly get to a conclusion from a particular point.&lt;p&gt;I wish these skills were emphasized more earlier in people&amp;#x27;s education, they are important skills for maximizing success IMO.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Math Myth</title><url>http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2016/09/the_math_myth.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nostrademons</author><text>This largely matches my experience - as a software engineer, I spend probably &amp;lt; 1% of my time doing math more complex than arithmetic and simple mathematical logic - but it&amp;#x27;s missing something crucial:&lt;p&gt;In a market economy, basically all returns come from &lt;i&gt;marginal&lt;/i&gt; gains.  The vast majority of your lifetime income will come from a dozen or fewer opportunities that you happen to be in a position to take advantage of, whether it&amp;#x27;s a new job offer or a high-profile project you volunteer for or a startup that takes off.  You will qualify for those opportunities based on the skills you have &lt;i&gt;that other people don&amp;#x27;t have&lt;/i&gt;.  They will make money for the organization because of features or insights that your competitors lack.  Your customers will buy it because it lets them do things that they couldn&amp;#x27;t otherwise do.&lt;p&gt;The stuff that you and everyone else spends 99% of your time doing is economically irrelevant.  You probably still need to do it (though if you can program a computer to do it, you have a huge leg up on competitors), but it doesn&amp;#x27;t get you anywhere.&lt;p&gt;Ironically, this is one of those insights that a good understanding of math will give you.  The common-sense understanding is that we should be teaching what the majority of people are doing; the data says that we should be teaching what the majority of people are &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; doing but desire the results of.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Ologn</author><text>In the spirit of what you&amp;#x27;re saying - it&amp;#x27;s possible ten people will be taught undergrad level math and only one will use it - but economically, that one person&amp;#x27;s added production value could pay for the education of all ten and then some.&lt;p&gt;The article speaks about Sputnik and one of the world&amp;#x27;s richest men, mathemetician and retired hedge fund manager Jim Simons notes that he is one of the first students to have benefited from the post-Sputnik STEM student grants.  He also mentioned how many people in the US were getting doctorates in mathematics in the year Sputnik went up - I&amp;#x27;m looking at the list of names right now and it is much less than 300.  So the additional NSF funding etc. that paid for his doctorate resulted in the billions his hedge fund made.</text></comment>