Have you ever had a conversation with someone where they keep insisting that they understand what you are saying, but you KNOW that they don't?
I did recently with one woman. I was talking about percentages. This is how the discussion started. I was talking about attendance, I stated that two years ago a certain % of people would not be present on any given day. This year that average has increased by 6%.
She responded by saying, "well they need to understand that they have more people now, so that will make the percentage go up."
What she is referring to is that about another 1,000 (an inaccurate number, just used for example) people were added. She states that because of these new people that it is only right that the percentages would increase. I tried to explain to her that it doesn't matter if you have 1,000 or 5,000 people the percentage is of the whole. The percentage does not change because you added more people. Yes percentages can increase or decrease but not simply because they have more people. The actual numbers of people absent may increase because of the increase of people, but not necessarily the percentage.
Is this that difficult to understand? Or is it just me that is wrong?
Well what ended up happening with me and this woman was that I had to tell her that we were not going to agree on anything so we needed to end the conversation now. We could have sat there and both argued our points for hours and neither of us would have changed our minds. So I decided to end it then, but now tell me which of us was right and which was wrong?
5 comments:
Actually, one of the best ways to explain this is to talk about the percentage "in the group" and the percentage "out of the group". Of course, P_out = 100% - P_in, otherwise you'd end with the two numbers adding up to more than 100%.
Sometimes you run into people who would rather argue than be right or, much worse, admit that they were wrong where someone might hear them.
I tend to have little fits when someone is an intentional math idiot. This is totally different from being accidentally wrong due to ignorance, incorrect information or incorrect technique. People who intentionally aim at the wrong answer and then argue the point send me into a tizz.
As you can see from this comment....
I must admit that math is not one of my favorite subjects. I've never had to understand math other than ordinary everyday math. I can quickly count change in my head, I know how to figure % for a tip when I go to the restaurant, I am very good at figuring % for the discount during my latest shopping trip, and I can cook using a recipe. I might even be able to do a few more things with math. I can do all of this in my head, but don't ask me to explain it to someone else. They would probably leave more confused then they were in the beginning. This I think was the case with this woman.
I wouldn't refer to myself as an intentional math idiot, but I am intentionally avoiding the more complex math problems. I think men tend to be more interested in math than women are. Although there are many things that I find interesting that I do not know or understand, but I am eager to learn.
Most people I know are not as eager to learn as I am.I guess it took me a while to realize this. My life took a different route than maybe it should have. Instead of going into college right after highschool, I went into the military. I don't actually regret this because I learned many things from my military experience. While there I met my ex-husband and started my family. I don't regret this, but I do regret that I didn't educate myself at the same time. Now being a single mother and my time is pretty much taken up by my children, I feel going to school is taking away from them. I take classes here and there usually one per semester. I don't have the family or an ex-husband to pick up my slack, so I have to take care of everything. This is important to me, so sometimes putting my wants on the backburner is what needs to be done. I'm not looking educate myself because I need a new job. My desire to educate myself is purely selfish, I just want it. I want to know more. You are absolutely correct with what you said the other day about us living in an information age where nobody should be denied the ability to learn more information, it is always within our reach. You don't need school to learn, there are always other ways. That isn't exactly what you said, but you know what I mean. For me time is something that I lack. I have tons of books on many different subjects, but finding the time to read them tends to be difficult. My job does not allow me the luxury of reading or surfing the net for information. Although I do take a book to work with me everyday, just in case the opportunity arises. It normally doesn't but I feel naked without it.
I really did appreciate the time you guys took out the other day to explain that to me.
BTW, I thought you were older. gotta run for now
Hey, I'm EXACTLY the right age.
One of the things that really helps bridge the gap of "math illiteracy" is a set of simple rules / BS detectors. The "both percentages have to add up to 100%" is a BS detector. Tipping is an opportunity for another: I usually just drop the last place and double the result. That way, the tip automatically comes out to 20%.
Simple stuff like that can make you SEEM smart.... ;-)
BTW, regarding military education, you should have gone into the submarine service. They have a definite culture of education through the rates and .... Oh. Wait. No girls allowed. ;-)
haha, well I certainly didn't think that calculating a 20% tip made me a genius. You may not see it as much as I do, BUT many people cannot even do that much. So put me somewhere between a genius and an idiot.
BTW...I am happy with my job choice in the military. I was a surgical technician. One of those things that I was very good at, and allowed me to see many different things that I never would have been able to experience otherwise.
Trust me, I've been the TA (Associate Instructor) for a whole bunch of different computer-science related classes. I thought that had lowered the bar but then I went out into industry.
One of the things that's really upsetting to me is when people can't even guess at an answer. Hello, simple estimation technique?
Example: what's 3.56 times 4.97? Don't do the problem, make an approximation. I typed those numbers at random but it looks like it would be about halfway between 3*5 = 15 and 4*5 = 20 so call it about 17 and a half.
The fact that many people can't even think logically about this sort of thing is just a tragedy. Of course, they have no one to blame but themselves (21st century and all).
As I tell my boys, EVERYTHING is math. Plus, the more math you know, the more math you see.
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