I taught logic for a couple of years at a university. His idea of rhetorical tautology should be called "circular reasoning" to distinguish it from the useful concept of a tautology in formal logic. Any boolean identity is a tautology. Those are very useful and not fallacious. Those include modus ponens, hypothetical syllogism, DeMorgan's laws, distributive laws, and much more. Every semester some students didn't have enough life experience to reinvent DeMorgan's, and they wrote blatantly wrong things like not(A or B) = (not A) or (not B).

See:
http://www.d.umn.edu/~snorr/ece1315f2/BOOLLAWP.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology

I have the opinion that logic should be drilled into all children in elementary school, because without some understanding of it they can't be relied on to form valid opinions about anything else. They should be rescued with logic before they enter a rut. Boolean algebra and quantifiers should be taught before high school, alongside formal geometry.

"Hindus and Buddhists aren't strapping on bombs."

If you knew anything about the race riots in India you would now about the appalling crimes committed by Hindu extremists against Muslims - I suggest you read Arundhati Roy's 'The Algebra of Infinite Justice' where you can read about Hindu gangs blowing up mosques and Muslim homes, burning Muslims alive and pregnant Muslim women having their stomachs slashed open and their unborn babies ripped out and thrown into fires.

>>>> It's true that Muslims don't hold the patent on barbarity. You can site Hindu extremism, but the flavor is a little different; they have their own caste system that pits one against the other in addition to anti-other-religions nuts. But despite their problems, India's loudest leading religious leaders aren't at war with the West and no American that recognizes Hindus fears them. Indian people have integrated well in American society.

"You are in the unenviable position of defending the indefensible."

Right back at you - I preach tolerance and understanding, you preach intolerance and hate. I have studied Islam and lived in the Islamic world - you've probably never been to university and don't even have a passport. You are not a monster - you're just plain ignorant.

>>>> I preach intolerance and hatred of the same fanatical side of Islam that you purport to abhor. I take it you're not an American (I am unsure of this) so the fury at watching American innocents die on 9-11 means something different to me than it does you.

>>>> On a personal level, I view the trappings of the Muslim faith as overly complicated and needlessly dogmatic.

>>>> Where we differ is, I see the rest of Islam as backwards. Not evil per se, but unfit and unworkable in its present state the 21st century. Muslims move into Western countries and refuse to assmilate. That's not immigration, that's invasion, and the politically-correct cowards who tolerate this will soon find themselves without a country, as is happening all over Europe.

>>> I invite you to read this essay by one Robert Locke, from 2002. I think you will find yourself agreeing with much of it. he highlights many of the same challenges you do.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1237

>>> It's well established that the "Palestinian people" are a fiction that did not exist before 1947-8. The facts are plain about who these people were and are. You found a few Israeli apologists who disagree, but that doesn't change the reality. "Palestinians" are forever being used to threaten Israel, held up as eternal victims by the monarchs Israel's ongoing success has made fools out of for decades. Destroy Israel and give it to "Palestinians" tomorrow and they wouldn't know how to build a civilization.

>>> I am far from ignorant about what matters to me. Only the paranoid survive, and because the loudest mouthpieces of Islam are terrorists, and because the people who should be horrified by being represented by terrorists do little or nothing about it, they have been placed in the unenviable position of being forced to war against Western nations in a winner-take-all scenario.

>>> You wish to be a Gandhi for Islam and that is commendable. I maintain that the first people who would love to silence you are the Islamofascists, not Westerners, and certainly not me. A few million more like-minded gwaans might yield an Islamic country ready for the future. Good luck.

"Hindus and Buddhists aren't strapping on bombs."

If you knew anything about the race riots in India you would now about the appalling crimes committed by Hindu extremists against Muslims - I suggest you read Arundhati Roy's 'The Algebra of Infinite Justice' where you can read about Hindu gangs blowing up mosques and Muslim homes, burning Muslims alive and pregnant Muslim women having their stomachs slashed open and their unborn babies ripped out and thrown into fires.

"You are in the unenviable position of defending the indefensible."

Right back at you - I preach tolerance and understanding, you preach intolerance and hate. I have studied Islam and lived in the Islamic world - you've probably never been to university and don't even have a passport. You are not a monster - you're just plain ignorant.

"9-11 is the face of Islam in America. Good luck with the PR, my friend."

Thankfully the rest of the world has a broader perspective than the insular, ignorant, bigots who govern America. AIPAC and its supporters dictate foreign policy and public perceptions of the Islamic world in the States - that's why people like you are so damn ignorant.

I'm a huge fan of Ms Roy - great post!

I particularly like her book - 'The Algebra Of Infinite Justice' - I reccomend that everyone reads it!

Clinton successfully kept Saddam in check by enforcing the no-fly zone. Cheap, easy, kept his aggression in check and didn't involve the US any more than necessary in the politics on the Middle East. Read the book by Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to George H.W. Bush. Here's what he said before Gulf War II in that notorious liberal rag, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133

The "reports" that Bush had access to was the raw, unverified intelligence - and what his administration did with it is proof exactly why competent Presidents trust Intelligence professionals to vet it. The Bush team cherry-picked what they wanted to get what they wanted - a long pointless (but very profitable for Halliburton) war and literal C130 cargo planes full of cash being shipped to the control of underlings chosen not for competence but for loyalty.

Please - try to do a tiny bit of moral algebra here, OK? What is Bill Clinton had done exactly the same things?

Well, of course she has an agenda -- no one is ever neutral about anything. The question is whether she's right or not.

I agree with her because I've seen the consequences of this alternative math education. It's a reaction to the "New Math" that was implemented in the 60s (in the US, and later in many other countries). New Math tried to teach formal math before giving students an intuitive background, with disastrous results. The "Everyday Math" approach does exactly the opposite -- it constantly resorts to intuition, and constantly delays formalization. Defenders of Everyday Math like to claim that formalization is just around the corner, but they never get to it.

I specially like her points because she's not a math teacher. She's someone with a background in science who noticed the problem and got interested in it. I'm an Electrical Engineering grad student, but I'm also working on becoming a licensed math teacher partly because of the disaster that math education has become in my country (Brazil).

In the long run, it is possible to teach elementary arithmetic and algebra using just about any approach, including Everyday Math. It's just not practical, and specially not in public schools where teachers have little time to allocate to each student. Math instruction must balance intuition and formality, and a curriculum which neglects one of these aspects will create deficient students. This deficiency can be overcome if kids are motivated enough to figure out the missing pieces, and if they have help from their teachers and parents, but this scenario is unrealistic in most cases.

How very odd all this is,
the second method is certainly strange but it's building upon a higher abstraction of the problem.
But her claim that the books that scare her don't have algorithms is wrong, they all have algorithms but some just use abstract algebra.

But I do find it a bit wierd how they are getting students to think about such a simple thing as multiplication in terms of algebra before teaching them algebra.

But yes these methods can start to prepare students for some higher level maths thinking, but without it done in such depth to keep their little brains working then it's pointless.

Any standard maths education runs on the principles that you are taught the fundamental ways just to do problems and then you look back at how you did them later.

Within this video however I do not feel her as a trustworthy source on all these topics,
Firstly she's reading someone else's script constantly and then there's her recommendations. Oh and the who are you factor.

"A University professor told me students couldn't do 4x4" - Erm what? Reference or else I don't believe you.

In the UK we learn the standard algorithms although they sort of forget about long division during secondary school until A level. I used long division for the first time in six years for algebraic division, luckily I still remembered the method I must say that even though my class is the top in our college there were still one or two people who couldn't understand it at all, which is slightly worrying. I was also very embarrassed at having to explain to one of my class mates from mechanics (the theoretical math type) how to use trig functions.

farhad2000 said: darksun, it's GMT -5 hours for US EST. So 9 PM - 10 PM GMT.

Your algebra is off farhad. At 2am EST at GMT -5...
2 = x - 5, solve for x where x is GMT
2 + 5 = x - 5 + 5
7 = x

So, 2am EST === 7am GMT

For all those people who think GCSE/High School Math is pointless, this video demonstrates why you are taught all that stuff.

Hence it's why you're taught stuff like algebra. The more math you do, the more you remember basic concepts.

For a group of call center employee's not to differentiate between two units is just sad.

Personally SnareMop: I find the complete editing of any post as a little dodgy (I even strike-out my non-grammar/typo edits to comments)... But re-writing a whole Sift Talk post to a question which was answered already (Christmas decorations) - seems un-nerving and confusing for anyone reading the comments above.

For any of those confused Sifters, here's the original Sift Talk posted:

My Day! (ooo so exciting!)

posted by snaremop [14 Published Videos] 7 hours 54 minutes ago

As usual, today started off at 5:56 in the morning. I ate some Honey Nut Cheerios, got dressed in my shite school uniform, and went off to school. First period is History, where absolutely nothing happened, except we watched a boring Discovery Channel movie about China. And we had to take notes. Then came science, where we began dissecting an owl pellet. I found it quite amusing how everyone thought it was owl shit. Next was recess, where I ate some granola type energy bar. I don't know. It was called Nature's Valley. Then came orchestra, where we practiced our asses off for our concert (which, as I'm writing this, starts in about an hour and a half). After orchestra is English, which is fairly boring, and I might have died if I did not sit next to interesting people. We corrected Vocabulary and did some practice worksheet. I did unusually bad on the vocabulary: 62 out of 66. Ha, I'm so modest. After English is P.E., where I ran a mile in 7:03 (well, it's a little more than a mile. Plus I'm the best boy runner in my class). After P.E. is lunch, which is a blur. It was very sunny; all I remember is my peanut butter sandwich. Our twenty five minute lunch is followed by Algebra, which is always boring but I am good at it. We are learning about graphs, slope, etc. It's my second year doing algebra: I failed the final in 6th grade. Finally, after ALgebra is Leadership, perhaps the most boring class of the day. We got our school email addresses, which consist of a line of cryptic letters and numbers, which are extremely hard to memorize. The day ended at 2 o clock, when I went to buy some clothes (a flannel shirt and polo) and then went to orthodontist to get my mouth of metal adjusted. I was pleased to hear I only have four more months of braces ! Finally I came home, did my algebra homework, and I am now typing this. Hope you enjoyed my blog? Ok, I guess it's a blog. Snaremop, out.

When did videosiftget overrun by the short sighted O_O

I am american, I went to school in texas, I am a HS and college grad. Growing up I would often hang out with my cousins who were studying in Mexico.When I was adding 2+2 they were multiplying it. When I was doing Algebra, they were already at advanced Calculus. I never suffered from lack of understanding of languages, I speak Spanish Engalish both fluently, and have a limited "tourist" vocabulary of German and French. While I know I am the exception, I also know that 90% of the HS grads in Mexico speak both English and Spanish.

Do americans need to learn other languages, I think not. Should they then at least be able to find Canada on a map? (I have actually had co-workers ask me Canadas location) Absolutly. Knowledge is power I say. Any one who is absurd enough to not want to learn something because "when will i need it" is an idiot. One should always strive to learn everything. I know idiotic things like "the bands with the nazi insignia on them during WW2 were call brassards" to "we are not 12 billion light years from the edge " And I am loving it.