The other day, I saw this amusing posting on Headlines from a Mathematically Literate World. I chuckled and moved on but then I read an article saying that American students had slipped to 26th place in world-wide mathematics test results and thought maybe those headlines were more generally applicable than I thought.
Still later the same day I saw an O’Reilly Factor1 clip in which he was in high dudgeon over the fact that arrests for marijuana DUIs in Washington state, which recently legalized pot for personal use, had increased 50%. This was a perfect example of the point the Mathematical Headlines post was trying to make.
What, exactly, does “increased 50%” really mean? Did it go from 2 arrests to 3 or did it go from 10,000 to 15,000 or something else? A 50 per cent increase sounds really bad but there’s no way of knowing from the statement alone whether it really is or not. This is where mathematical literacy comes in. Mathematically literate people would ask themselves what that 50% increase really meant and whether or not it should have public policy implications. The mathematically illiterate simply get stampeded in whatever direction someone using such a phrase desires.
I have no doubt, given Irreal’s subject matter, that most people reading this are in fact mathematically literate but consider the implications of having a large percentage of the population that is not. Among other things, we end up with bad laws and suboptimal public policy.
Footnotes:
Bill O’Reilly is a conservative American commentator who, among other things, opposes the legalization of pot on public health grounds. The O’Reilly Factor is his nightly Fox show.