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Or is this an Onion-type article? 56% of Americans think that Arabic numbers shouldn't be taught in school. 15% more are neutral. Unfortunately, I haven't actually found the poll at https://civicscience.com/ .
The scary thing is that I find it all too plausible.
Comments
I suspect it depends on the way the question was asked.
I would be willing to bet that a majority of people don't know or realize that the numbers we use every day are arabic numerals. If this was not made plain to them I expect they would think they were some foreign thing like Sharia law and react accordingly. I doubt they would say to stop teaching kids about the numbers we and they use every day.
Commentator
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While the poll may be truthful
Polls are worthless without knowing the demographics and number of people polled. How many other questions and what are their content?
The article also goes on to say that in another poll the question, "Should Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre’s creation theory be taught in our schools?" Honestly I didn't know who he was either until I Googled the name and I have two college degrees, although in my defense neither are in physics. So if asked that on the street without any further information I would probably answer "NO" also.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
3,624
Near the top, the article said 3624 people were polled. Two standard deviations is less than 60, or 1/60th the sample. The number was adequate. Of course, i don't know the demographics. I think that this was the only question. Pretty clearly, the best explanation is that they'd forgotten that "Arabic" numerals were our ordinary numerals.
I'm not sure I'd have gotten George Lemaitre right either. Sometimes the facts we know decouple from names associated with them.
It's the same type of question as the "Dihydrogen monoxide" (better named "hydrogen hydroxide") poll/petition.
-- Daphne Xu
I dont know about other countries
but in the US, even when I went to school, it was not really pointed out. only those who STUDIED history, outside of class pretty much, could or would know this. same on the Priest question, people make assumptions based on their prejudices. our schools have been jokes for years, why do you think the US rates so low in education that we have to IMPORT for most tech jobs (although lower wages, etc are a factor as well, but not always) too many here in the US are looking for the get rich quick jobs, the glamorous jobs, NOT the needed jobs.
The most recent PISA results, from 2015, placed the U.S. an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science. Among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsors the PISA initiative, the U.S. ranked 30th in math and 19th in science. Feb 15, 2017
Teresa L.
I remember very clearly being told
Somewhere between 7th grade and 11 grade, perhaps multiple time hearing our numbering system being referred to as "Arabic Numerals." Mind you, it was in passing and I do have a strong tendency to remember obscure details of conversations, but it was mentioned.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
US schools
When I was in elementary school, we learned Roman numerals and why we use "Arabic" numerals instead. We didn't learn that the Arabs borrowed them from India. But then, I'm as old as dirt, having been born way back in MCMXLVIII and graduated from high school in MCMLXVI.
L J Bra
Since we're the same age you probably know that the Arab who borrowed those numbers from India was wearing a size LJ bra.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
L J Bra?
I thought it was the mermaid that wore an algae bra. (I'll have to ask Veronica.)
What? You mean not everyone
What? You mean not everyone wants to know that II + II = IV?
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Really?
I always thought that 11 + 11 = 110.
There again, I spent far too much of my life around computers...
Penny
This Base?
Do you know the base in which:
Then there's the base in which the answer is "42" and the question is "What is 6 times 9?"
-- Daphne Xu
The old saying fits perfectly
There is nowt as queer as folk.
Queer as in strange
These same people wont know the roots of many of the words in English come from the Middle East, South Asia and beyond.
Should we stop using them as well?
Numpties the lot of them
Samantha
(Mis)understanding numbers
I was watching a (scientific?) debate on YouTube where someone claimed that 10^-17 was a negative number
"and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys" (Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
The article does mention that,
It was targeted to get a reaction out of those who did not understand the question.
9gag
With a name like Nine Gag, I would expect it to be a satire site. It doesn't read like one, though.
The numbers are all too plausible, since we rarely refer to our numbering system as Garian... I mean Hindu-Arabic numbers.
I don't think it's bigotry as much as it is the opinion that there is little reason to learn a numbering system that they have never heard of.
Latin script?
I expect that you would get a similiar, though perhaps less vehement, reaction to a question whether US schools should teach Latin script.
Quite possible
After all, why burden the kids with so heavy, and apparently obsolete subject?
The really sad part about the Arabic numbers poll is that you don't even have to know that these are our ordinary numbers, in order to see that this will not be dangerous. What danger there can be in numbers, for whatever's sake?! With an alphabet, children could theoretically read "bad things" - eg. the Quran. (Of course, if learning the alphabet also teaches them magically the language - but that is a very minor detail, it is OK to overlook it...) But to see a danger in numbers, one has to lack any semblance of reason. One has to run on endocrine glands instead of on a brain...
Actually, there are often polls that demonstrate that conclusion about the average person. In my country, we call them "elections".
11th grade social studies
When I was in the 11th grade, I got a low mark in a social studies test and my teacher offered me some extra credit work to bring my grade up for the semester. So I check out some books from the library and began reading on the subject to write a report. My father saw me studying and asked what I was studying. I explained that we were studying Communism and I needed to write a report on it.
He nearly came unglued that we were studying Communism. I had to explain that we weren't being indoctrinated but studying the rise of Communism in Eastern Europe and comparing it to Capitalism to get him to calm down.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
You at least have a father who listened at all
Some folks doesn't.
Irony
The irony is that modern Arabic numerals don't look anything like the ones that we call 'Arabic'.
Penny
I have an Arab friend that told me once...
... that the entire world (including India) uses the Arabic numbers, except for the Arabs themselves - who use the Indian numbers!
In my country, there was the same poll
And the results were similar, too - way over half thought we shouldn't teach our kids Arabic numbers.
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” - Winston Churchill
I think that Churchill also
I think that Churchill also said that Democracy was the worst form of government -- except for all else.
-- Daphne Xu
yes and no
He did say that in the house of commons, but he was quoting someone else.
"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"
Teresa L.
He did.
Wise guy, that Churchill.
So if the poll isn't
So if the poll isn't on the specified source, then maybe the poll result is a fake? Fake news on the net isn't the rarity recently.