the new math: old battle of the lovees was: PDP1 3567

While there are issues with introducing calculators before rote mastery of material (and that is a very large issue in math instruction these days), you're almost making my point. Scientific notation is largely a product of using slide rules (and why almost all science textbook *still* use 3 significant figures or fewer in their problems), and of use to a relatively small subset of people (beyond doing their science lab reports), and I would argue that its main uses there are significant figures and error estimation (are two values equivalent within measurement error or not). Estimating and sanity checking are useful skills (the number one issue I run into with my students are misplaced parenthesis on the graphing calculators...but usually they know the answer is wrong, but can't figure out why)

When I was in school teacher would ask students things like "Are you going to walk around with a calculator-sliderule everywhere?" and the answer today is that yes they are, and do. They really don't have to whip out a pencil and paper or do mental math. It's a neat party trick, but not a particularly useful skill for most of the populous. Those who need it will learn it, those who don't it will atrophy. Having been several years since I took any E&M clbuttes I would now have to go look up the values for the electric and magnetic permeability of free space (which I used to know off the top of my head), so I can no longer do quick calculations in my head. If I were to do them on a regular basis, I would know them and be able to. For most people the skills are you talking about are artificial, so even if they are taught, they will be lost in short order.

I don't seem to recall saying that it was an intrinsic ability anywhere. It is still taught, and required, but it was never something that large portions of the population mastered, and I don't believe that the level possessing it now is significantly different from recent historical levels. If fact I would not be in the least surprised if it was higher due to larger number of women taking careers in the math and sciences in the last few decades. The depressing thing is that many of the students *are* demonstrating critical analysis. They look at what is required to get a degree or job in a science or engineering field vs. the return, then switch to business or law (or medicine, but I certainly have no problem with analytical folks in those careers).

Bill