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To Those Students Who Wonder: “When Am I Ever Going to Use This In Life?”
Jason Rosenhouse (below), a professor at James Madison University (and author of some excellent math books), spoke at the graduation ceremony for JMU’s College of Science and Mathematics over the...
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What in the Blazes Is Going On With These Graphs?
Can you make sense of this? The blue line shows the ten-year trend in the marriage rate in Mississippi. The orange line represents how much milk we consume in the United States. Uncanny, huh? Does...
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5 Lessons from a Christian Counting Workbook
Some advice for PR people: If you send me an email asking me if I want to review Bible workbooks for preschoolers, and you never bother to Google my name, then I’m going to say “Yes. Yes I do.” So here...
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This is What Happens When Headline Writers Don’t Know Their Statistics
Last week, the Pew Research Center released a survey showing that being an atheist was the most negative trait a presidential candidate could posses: You can see from the list that being an atheist was...
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I Guess Math is Harder Than a Mixed-Faith Relationship…
According to Dale McGowan, author of the forthcoming book In Faith and In Doubt (about relationships between atheists and believers), one in six “religiously unaffiliated” people have spouses who are...
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This is How You Do “Common Core” Subtraction
Erick Erickson, the editor of the conservative website RedState, is furious because of the way his third grade daughter is being taught math. I mean, just look at how her “Common Core” textbook teaches...
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Six Reasons the PhotoMath App Isn’t As Cool As You Think It Is
By now, you’ve probably seen the amazing video about an app called PhotoMath. Once you download it, you can take a picture of a math problem with your phone… and the app not only solves the problem, it...
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It’s Every Math Teacher’s Dream…
See how that response plays out at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
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It’s Worth Taking a Full Minute to Learn How to Add 9 and 6: A Response to...
Quick: What’s 99 + 47?No calculators.It’s 146. Of course it’s 146. You know how I know that?Because I rounded the 99 to 100… and then subtracted one from 47 to make up the difference.I sure as hell...
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Friendly Atheist Podcast Episode 73: Dr. Keith Devlin, Mathematics...
Our latest podcast guest is Dr. Keith Devlin, a mathematician who’s also known as The Math Guy on NPR’s Weekend Edition. He has written several books explaining math to the masses. And he’s also the...
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The Dad Who Wrote a Check Using “Common Core” Math Doesn’t Know What He’s...
Doug Herrmann, a father from Ohio, was frustrated that he couldn’t help his second-grade son with his math homework last week. Even though it should have been easy, the curriculum his son was using...
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This is How Anti-Abortion Groups Lie with Statistics
Over the past several years, Planned Parenthood has increased the raw number of abortions it provides. In 2006, they performed 289,750 abortions. By 2013, the number had gone up to 327,000. It’s...
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Why Would a Math Teacher Punish a Child for Saying 5 x 3 = 15?
What’s 5 x 3?How about 4 x 6?You might think those are simple questions, but a third grader had points taken off on an exam recently after giving the answers 15 and 24, respectively.“But those are the...
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Sometimes, Estimating is Better Than Getting the Exact Answer
People ask me why I keep writing posts about math. Mainly, it’s because I care about critical thinking, and I want students to learn how to think logically. That’s a skill most of us didn’t learn how...
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A Musical Battle of the Sciences
The guys at AsapSCIENCE had me at science and Star Wars and a cappella. Because you really can’t go wrong when you combine those, can you?The last part of the video is clearly the best.(via Joe. My....
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According to a Creationist Video, 3 + 3 = 6 is Somehow Proof of God’s Existence
In the latest episode of Creation Today (which I’m sure you all binge-watch), host Eric Hovind explains how God and mathematics are intertwined.There’s a great moment near the beginning where Hovind...
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All Your Questions About the Powerball Jackpot, Answered
On Wednesday night, the Powerball jackpot will reach an astonishing $1.3 billion, though it’ll probably be more by the time the drawing occurs. Since a lot of you have questions about it, let me help...
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Algebra is Still Important and Andrew Hacker is Still Wrong
A few years ago, Andrew Hacker, a professor of political science and mathematics at Queens College, made a case in the New York Times for why teaching algebra in high school was almost entirely...
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The “Common Core” Nanny Doesn’t Understand Subtraction
For the past few weeks, “Nanny” Melissa Strzala has been posting videos explaining Common Core methods for doing math… and, not surprisingly, she has no clue what she’s complaining about.The most...
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West Virginia School Board Candidates Debate Teaching Creationism; This...
The Putnam County Board of Education in West Virginia will have two open seats in the upcoming election, and three of the candidates vying for those spots participated in a forum last night for the...
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Why This Pi Day is Better Than the Last One
Vi Hart reminds us that this year’s Pi Day (3/14/16) is *way* more impressive than last year’s Pi Day (3/14/15).Even though the whole celebration of Pi is a sham.I’ll see you all on Tau Day. It’s much...
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The Battle Over What Students Should Be Taught in Their Math Classes Rages On
Following up on what I wrote a couple of weeks ago, there's still a lot of debate among the math educators I know about Professor Andrew Hacker's new book The Math Myth.Hacker doesn't think we should...
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Math Is the New Terrorism
Via CBS and the Associated Press:An Ivy League professor said his flight was delayed because a fellow passenger thought the math equations he was writing might be a sign he was a terrorist. American...
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This Question on a Math Test is Really Homophobic (Also, I Solved It)
For some reason, when a teacher handed out a math test at the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe, England, there was a strange bit of homophobic editorializing in one of the questions:
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What Math Says (And Doesn’t Say) About God’s Existence
Is it possible to use math to come to a conclusion, one way or the other, about God's existence?
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