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Who will you vote for in the 2012 presidential election...

Who will you vote for in the 2012 Presidential Election?

  • Total voters
    113
Ikari said:
In fact, one of the reasons why I can strip a motorcycle down to the frame and build it again was that I had the problem solving capabilities to sit down by myself and learn how to do it. I didn't need to go to school (you can pay someone to teach you how an engine works if you need I suppose). I fixed our old microwave because I understand electronics.

I think that for some of the more anti-intellectual folk out there they cannot see higher education as yielding anything important and think that all we do can never be applied to the real world.
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So you admit some have problem solving skills and can learn anything, but then go on to the whole higher education thing again.
 
Arbo said:
It appears philosophical mathematicians do, at times.
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A math teacher in High School told this joke

There was this magnificent mathematical horse. You could teach it arithmetic which it learned with no difficulty, algebra was a breeze.
It could even prove theorems in Euclidean Geometry, but when you tried to teach it Analytic Geometry, it
would rear back on its hind legs, kick ferociously neigh loudly, try to bite and generally resisted the subject.
The moral of this story is you can't put Descartes before the horse.

Which is rather lame, but most math jokes are.
 
Ikari said:
Which is rather lame, but most math jokes are.
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With teachers in my family, and in my wife's family, we are both familiar with lame teacher humor.
 
Marilyn Monroe said:
As soon as you start yakking "racist" nobody listens. I think most honest people know that's not debating.

Stating a fact that 96% of blacks voted for Obama suggests his race had something to do with it. You may not like this fact, but it is what it is.

Hollaring racist is like yelling fire in a crowded theatre. It should be considered a hate crime.
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In all fairness, black support for Gore, Kerry, etc was almost as high. ever since the New Deal blacks have voted dem despite dem opposition to civil rights in the 50's and early 60s. Yet Black TURNOUT was extraordinary for Obama. What Obama did was not increase black voting PERCENTAGES much for dems but TURNOUT. A friend of mine lost his congressional seat as hordes of black voters voted dem across the board. he easily won his seat back in 2010 when these same black voters stayed home
 
Tucker Case said:
Instead of laughing, maybe you should take note that I was making a comparison of carpentry to other jobs on the list (the majority of which have no math involved). Did you know reading comprehension skills are also correlated with IQ scores? So should we assume that your sub-par ability to note the presence of a comparison, which is likely to be a product of sub-par reading comprehension skills, is a sign of a lack of intelligence on your part?
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You should be a defense lawyer, because you have quite a knack for diverting the focus of attention away from evidence against you. You're trying to counter by comparing jobs which merely use arithmetic and are near the bottom of the IQ. I'll give you that the carpenter uses a tiny amount of geometry. You've studied physics, so I would have expected you to realize that when I say "good at math" with respect to an adult that I'm talking about a lot more than being able to add, subtract, multiply and divide real numbers. I also love how you try to compare two jobs in the lower half rather than see the big picture of how jobs requiring math skills such as knowledge of calculus are near the top (e.g. science and engineering).

Sure I did. But if you were really being smart about it, you'd have noticed that the median IQ for that group is still within the average IQ range. the majority of people in the field fail to get out of the "high average" range of intelligence. Surely a mathematician would be able to figure out what the overlap means. I mean, a full 50% of carpenters have IQs within the exact same range as 50% of the people in that physical science group (where math was found). It's right there in the numbers and ranges. One group as a whole was toward the bottom, the other was toward teh top. Clearly there are some carpenters who have higher IQs than some people in the physical.

Hell, almost 25% of people in that physical science group had IQ's under 100. How would that be possible if math skill equaled intelligence?
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There you go again with the defense lawyer approach as a pessimist instead of looking at the entire picture.
 
iliveonramen said:
Only if you ignore the fact that Democrats generally recieve 80ish % of the black vote every election.

Maybe the issue is the vast majority of blacks don't trust the Republican party?
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some would say the addiction to entitlements and the fact that starting in the 60's the GOP was the law and order party. You do know what LBJ bragged about happening after the Civil rights act was signed into law by him?

Something about the dems wrapping up the N$*%$(# vote for centuries
 
digsbe said:
An education that values critical thinking skills versus bland regurgitation will expand someone's intelligence in my opinion.
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true, but it goes hand in hand. intelligent people are GENERALLY intellectually curious and intellectual curiosity drives a person to seek education to satisfy that curiosity. people with athletic talent don't always become skilled competitors but those who enjoy challenges and who have the talent to deal with them tend to be the most skilled athletes. same with thinkers. having innate skill makes the desire to challenge oneself more enjoyable and with that comes wisdom and skill
 
Arbo said:
It appears philosophical mathematicians do, at times.
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...in the hopes of seeing signs of even an ounce of logical reasoning skills in others once in a while.
 
Arbo said:
I'll take that as a non-answer.
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The full job title is Applied Research Mathematician with focus in number theory, combinatorics and probability. I also teach part-time.

Here's a classical introductory to combinatorics problem for fun:

You're on an old-school game show where there are three closed doors, one with a car behind it and two empty. You select a door and hope to choose the one with the car. The host then shows you that one of the doors you didn't pick is empty. Then the host does the offer for you to keep the door you picked or switch to the unopened door you didn't choose. Do you keep your door, switch, or does it make no difference?
 
Mathematician said:
The full job title is Applied Research Mathematician with focus in number theory, combinatorics and probability. I also teach part-time.

Here's a classical introductory to combinatorics problem for fun:

You're on an old-school game show where there are three closed doors, one with a car behind it and two empty. You select a door and hope to choose the one with the car. The host then shows you that one of the doors you didn't pick is empty. Then the host does the offer for you to keep the door you picked or switch to the unopened door you didn't choose. Do you keep your door, switch, or does it make no difference?
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Its 50 50 like flipping a coin? Your odds went from 33.3% to 50% of being right
 
Mathematician said:
The full job title is Applied Research Mathematician with focus in number theory, combinatorics and probability. I also teach part-time.

Here's a classical introductory to combinatorics problem for fun:

You're on an old-school game show where there are three closed doors, one with a car behind it and two empty. You select a door and hope to choose the one with the car. The host then shows you that one of the doors you didn't pick is empty. Then the host does the offer for you to keep the door you picked or switch to the unopened door you didn't choose. Do you keep your door, switch, or does it make no difference?
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I love this game, you ALWAYS change doors! :)

I found this for some reason such a hard concept to wrap my mind around, but mythbusters proved it.
 
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RabidAlpaca said:
I love this game, you ALWAYS change doors! :)

I found this for some reason such a hard concept to wrap my mind around, but mythbusters proved it.
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Interesting. there is a joke in Hell about that
 
TurtleDude said:
Its 50 50 like flipping a coin? Your odds went from 33.3% to 50% of being right
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Wrong.

RabidAlpaca said:
I love this game, you ALWAYS change doors! :)

I found this for some reason such a hard concept to wrap my mind around, but mythbusters proved it.
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Right. I don't watch Mythbusters, so I'd be interested in how they went about it. In any case, it's a simple proof.

Proof:
Since there's one car and three doors, the odd are 2/3 that you are going to choose an empty door. Regardless of whether you were initially right or wrong, the host always has an empty door they can show after you choose. Therefore, choosing to switch is equivalent to originally selecting the two doors you didn't choose together instead of the one. So you odds at winning the car double from 1/3 to 2/3.


This problem generalizes to the case of having x number of doors and being shown empty doors until only the one you chose and one more remain. Switching then increases your odds from 1/x to (x-1)/x.
 
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Mathematician said:
Wrong.



Right. I don't watch Mythbusters, so I'd be interested in how they went about it. In any case, it's a simple proof.

Proof:
Since there's one car and three doors, the odd are 2/3 that you are going to choose an empty door. Regardless of whether you were initially right or wrong, the host always has an empty door they can show after you choose. Therefore, choosing to switch is equivalent to originally selecting the two doors you didn't choose together instead of the one. So you odds at winning the car double from 1/3 to 2/3.


This problem generalizes to the case of having x number of doors and being shown empty doors until only the one you chose and one more remain. Switching then increases your odds from 1/x to (x-1)/x.
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Interesting. I don't know if I buy it without analyzing it further but its interesting nonetheless.
 
Mathematician said:
Right. I don't watch Mythbusters, so I'd be interested in how they went about it. In any case, it's a simple proof.
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TurtleDude said:
Interesting. I don't know if I buy it without analyzing it further but its interesting nonetheless.
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It's called the monty hall paradox. There are a lot of youtube videos on it if you're interested.

Here's the mythbusters episode. It was pretty clever how they did it.
MythBusters Season 9 Episode 21 - HD WHEEL OF MYTHFORTUNES (FULL) - YouTube
 
lpast said:
Thats pretty much all true...except...it was during the Jurassic Age were now in 2012 the Age of the Teaparty
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The perfect transition point for these little gems:

 
Mathematician said:
The full job title is Applied Research Mathematician with focus in number theory, combinatorics and probability.
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Ah, research. And probability.

"If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability."

You're on an old-school game show where there are three closed doors, one with a car behind it and two empty. You select a door and hope to choose the one with the car. The host then shows you that one of the doors you didn't pick is empty. Then the host does the offer for you to keep the door you picked or switch to the unopened door you didn't choose. Do you keep your door, switch, or does it make no difference?
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I do nothing, since I have never been, nor would ever be on any gameshow.
 
hazlnut said:
Doesn't matter Navy, Obama's got it in the bag.
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sure he does. I look forward to your suicide if Romney wins. Such an event would surely crush the life out of you
 
Ikari said:
I don't know. There are certainly some base courses where they are teaching a methodology; but I think a lot of this is up to drive as well. In undergrad I majored in Chemistry and Physics with minors in Math, Botany, and Political Science. I really only felt that in gen ed classes was there not a lot of effort placed in critical thinking and problem solving. In physics, the ideal is critical thinking and problem solving. It's not about x=xo+vot+1/2at^2. That formula can be derived so long as you understand the system you're analyzing. In fact it was always easy to find the kids who only wanted to plug and chug because they would often use the wrong equations and refused to actually understand the physics instead. In physics it's concepts and thinking, all formulas fall out easily if you know it.

In undergrad I worked on particle accelerators, super conductors, ultra high vacuum systems, I made my own experiment for the p-chem course, etc. Now I have a PhD, what did I learn? I know a **** ton about physics, I'm published in peer-reviewed journals, I've given countless talks and poster presentations, I understand how optics work, I can make complex electrical circuits and design printed circuit boards, I can build ANYTHING with a lathe and a mill, I can program in several langauages. I built a lab from ground up to do my PhD research including lasers, electronics, mechanics, etc.

So is there no "real world" application in that? Hell no. In fact, one of the reasons why I can strip a motorcycle down to the frame and build it again was that I had the problem solving capabilities to sit down by myself and learn how to do it. I didn't need to go to school (you can pay someone to teach you how an engine works if you need I suppose). I fixed our old microwave because I understand electronics.

I think that for some of the more anti-intellectual folk out there they cannot see higher education as yielding anything important and think that all we do can never be applied to the real world. But even base research is applicable and you wouldn't have the tech you have today without it.
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I think you are seeing my point as being anti-intellectual, when that's really not what I'm trying to say. I'm all for intellectualism, I just don't buy into the idea that the only path to intellectualism is a formal education. I also don't buy the idea that having a PhD makes someone intellectually superior to a person without a PhD. Having a PhD is a fine thing. I've always been interested in pursuing one myself, although since my son was born I've decided to push it off for a while.

That being said, one comment about the motorcycle: Didn't you ever tinker around with **** like that when you were a kid? When I was about 6, my old man had to start locking up all of his tools because I was taking everything apart, including the tools themselves, when he wasn't looking. Once he realized I could put them back together again, though, he didn't mind so much and bought me my own tool set when I was 7. Maybe the fact that I grew up in an environment where that kind of thing was encouraged gives me a strange perspective on things, but I find it odd to think that you didn't even feel comfortable tinkering with engines and such until you had gotten a formal education.
 
Mathematician said:
You should be a defense lawyer, because you have quite a knack for diverting the focus of attention away from evidence against you. You're trying to counter by comparing jobs which merely use arithmetic and are near the bottom of the IQ. I'll give you that the carpenter uses a tiny amount of geometry. You've studied physics, so I would have expected you to realize that when I say "good at math" with respect to an adult that I'm talking about a lot more than being able to add, subtract, multiply and divide real numbers. I also love how you try to compare two jobs in the lower half rather than see the big picture of how jobs requiring math skills such as knowledge of calculus are near the top (e.g. science and engineering).
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I know what you mean by good at math, but I realize that (in most cases) that's a scholastic achievement, not a natural talent. Even the source used by your source explains that difference by describing math skill as a scholastic achievement (the PDf to that primary source is linked on the web page).

A person does not need to be intelligent in order to achieve scholastically. It helps, certainly, but it's not required.


There you go again with the defense lawyer approach as a pessimist instead of looking at the entire picture.
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I am looking at the entire picture. Correlation does not suggest causation. You should know this.
 
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