posted
To be fair, Nighthawk, there are large numbers of scientists and mathematicians who are clueless about historical, literary and geographical (etc.) information.
I mentioned the French Revolution to someone the other day and he was like "uh huh" in such a way to make me think he really had no idea what had happened. I asked him. He had only the vaguest of ideas about what had occured and the French Revolution isn't obscure.
Ignorance can run both ways. I admit, it's tragic, but it's not one-sided.
I see big difference between knowing relatively simple mathematics and knowing French history. I may not need to know French history in order to live my life. And, quite frankly, although I know bits and pieces of it, the French Revolution *is* reasonably obscure... to me.
Let me play devil's advocate here... one's expected to know things that impact their life directly. I may not need to know history or geography. Whether I know the capital of Belarus, or what the main character in Death of a Salesman is, doesn't affect how much I get paid or how I live my life. But I like to think that mathematics, at least basic mathematics, are pretty much necessary wherever you go. Granted, I'm not expecting them to do square roots in their head, but still.
I might expect that ignorance from John Q. Public, but not from the elite, those that pride themselves on their knowledge and on their education. I expect people to do elementary mathematics if their introduction uses "professor" or "graduate", even if their degree might be the polar opposite. Hell, I've seen stockbrokers get math questions wrong on the show, and I mean *really* wrong.
Then again, I do have a family member, an attorney, who has called me during meetings with her customer, while standing in front of the customer, and asks questions like "what's 10% of three million dollars?"
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
In all fairness, I am generally appalled when the average adult tells me how little of their childhood they actually remember, so I wouldn't be surprised with what they covered in school got blacked out too.
Most of the questions seem to cover basic knowledge about the world around us. None are that obscure, but childhood education is almost all memorization. You can whine all you want about unfairness of the questions, but when it comes down to it, the unfairness part is that probably any regular Jeopardy contestant would have won the full amount of money. But that's not entertainment.
In my experience, adults are dumber than children. They don't read signs or remember or learn well because they aren't used to being told what to do. They also try to get away with more than kids do.
As for the pacing of the show, well that was just typical of my elementary school education.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Reminds me of one of my father's favorite stories.
He works for the Oregon state legislature, in some position that involves him running committees and doing the work behind the scenes that legislators take credit for when a bill is coming up for a vote. At any rate, he was testifying before a committee about a program with a proposed budget of $500,000. In his talk, he sometimes said "five hundred thousand" and in other places said "half a million". The chair of the committee, stopped him at one point and said "Now wait a minute, Mr. R. Don't try to put something over on me. Is it half a million, or is it five hundred thousand?"
My father said he just swallowed his smirk and said "I apologize, Madam Chair for confusing the issue. It is five hundred thousand.' and then continued his testimony. He said the other legislators on the panel were all chuckling but she never seemed to get what had happened. Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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