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Showing posts with the label mathematics

Happy Pi Day!

Happy Π Day!

Follies and Nonsense #273

Happy Pi Day

Happy Pi Day

Happy Pi Day ! I will be taking an internet break until we get back from Ligonier 2012, but there are a few posts scheduled in my absence.  Lord willing, I'll post on the conference when we return home.

Pomo Math?

I would have thought that something as black and white as math would be exempt from the spreading ooze of postmodernism. Obviously not: Today, however, most philosophers no longer even regard mathematics as a body of truths. The dominant philosophy of mathematics treats it as a social construction, like the game of baseball. "Three strikes and you're out" is an arbitrary rule. It's not true or false; it's just the way we choose to play the game. By the same token, mathematical rules are regarded as just the way we play the game. Even American schoolchildren are now taught this postmodern view of math. A popular middle school curriculum says students should learn that "mathematics is man-made, that it is arbitrary, and good solutions are arrived at by consensus among those who are considered expert." Man-made? Arbitrary? Clearly, our public schools have waded deeply into the muddy waves of postmodernism. Moreover, if math is arbitrary, then there ar...