Pzhon's Post about Math and Nerds

[David Sklansky]

I'm repeating this from the bottom of the math nerds thread so that more people will see it. His statement is stronger than mine and he is more qualified to know about the subject in question. I'd like to see comments. Especially from mackthefork and Andy Fox.

Quote:

"Mathematical nerds typically end up with vast exposure to the subject that interests them but little exposure to the arts, philosophy, literature, history or psychology. Which is why many end up with few people skills and are loners. If they took a modest percentage of their intelligence and applied it to the study of the "liberal arts" they would emerge as better individuals, capable of leading people and influencing people."

In my experience, almost all mathematics majors spend a lot of time studying the arts, philosophy, literature, etc. Few humanities majors take many substantial classes in mathematics or science. However, people still feel compelled to assume that any strength comes with a weakness. It's greatly upsetting to people to realize that someone may be better than them in every academic category. Luckily for them, a well-rounded intellect usually comes with a frail physique, or at least small genitals. Not. Stereotypes of illiterate engineers comfort insecure people, but they are not based in fact.

Quick: What is the average verbal SAT score of a Caltech freshman? Answer: About 730.

[RJT]

I don’t have a real answer to your question? I don’t even understand the question to give an intelligent answer.

But, I do know that I enjoy your subtly injected humor.

Regarding your SAT fact. I don’t think we can equate high verbal SAT scores with the Humanities (if that is what you inferred.) Verbal skills are highly logical, don‘t you think? This is not to say that the English language is logical. But, once one learns the rules, logic skills certainly help one’s verbal skills.

Keep up the good humor.

Regards,

RJT (for the time being)

[gumpzilla]

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Regarding your SAT fact. I don’t think we can equate high verbal SAT scores with the Humanities (if that is what you inferred.)

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Bringing SAT scores in was kind of silly, as it almost always is. But pzhon's point is right on. Plenty of physicists and mathematicians enjoy reading a pretty broad range of things and are far more educated (relatively) about various fields of the humanities than the average humanities student is about math or physics. Here's a pretty famous quote on this subject by C.P.Snow:

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A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'
I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question -- such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, 'Can you read?' -- not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had.

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I don't think it's quite as extreme as this, but this is pretty close.

[disjunction]

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Not. Stereotypes of illiterate engineers comfort insecure people, but they are not based in fact.


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True. This has been studied to death. Intellect in any area correlates to all kinds of good qualities in any other area. Including good looks. Which explains a lot, don't you think?

[jason1990]

This makes it look like the Quote is from pzhon and what follows it is commentary from David Sklansky. But I just discovered that the Quote is from ACPlayer and what follows it is pzhon's response to that quote.

Maybe a link would have been less confusing.

[RJT]

Thank you for the clarification. The OP has the ending quotation mark too soon. Well, it really needs another set of quotation marks.

I still stand by my original assertion that David's subtle humor is funny.

[malorum]

WARNING anecdotal evidence:

"Math's and science types" often have functional characteristics resembling Asperger's Syndrome.
I suspect social deficits may be a consequence more of the Genotype than of evironmental factors.

I and most of my high IQ friends share some of these social deficits, despite wildly different life experiences.

I think it's the social intuition that's most likely to be defective. The Math's type person may have to work out what to do, rather than knowing what to do. We often get it wrong. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[andyfox]

There's a little disconnect between AC Player's comments and those of Pzhon, as AC PLayer talks about "mathematical nerds," by which I assume he is talking about the proverbial stereotype, whereas Pzhon talks about "mathematics majors." But, my posts in the other thread notwithstanding, if I understand his point correctly, I agree with it.

Believe it or not, (and at the risk of betraying a touch of Sklanskyitis) I was a math nerd in high school and scored 800 on the math SAT at age 16. I doubt I could score 600 today (36 years later). Math and science lost interest for me as I became interested in politics, history, music, architecture, business and other things. I don't for a minute deny that knowing the math, or rather, how to think about the math, helped me in all those areas and most likely helps others in similar ways. I was successful in a business at which, quite frankly, I'm not naturally adept. I can't deny that part of the reason for my success is probably a "mathematical," i.e., organized, rigorous, logical approach to it, which I had to take in order to compete with others who were naturally more talented in the field. And perhaps my "silly romanticism" in other areas is a psychological reaction to knowing that that's the case. But I would guess that there are many more people who score 800 on the verbal and only 550 on the math portion of the SAT, than score 800 on the math and only 550 on the verbal.

My argument with David concerns something similar to what Negreanu said in his apology to David: that math types, or scientists all too often neglect the other aspects of life. I brought up Vietnam in the other thread because I remembered David's comments in Poker, Gaming & Life about the war and that he measured the EV of going to war there without mentioning the Vietnamese. Now I know he was talking about he EV for the American soldiers, not for the Vietnamese. But that's what I've seen all too often in my reading in history and politics: the Best and the Brightest are all too often blinded by their own brilliance and assume that what's correct in situation X must, because it is based on logic and math and science, be correct in all situations. So we end up with rational building where every modernist structure looks the same the world over no matter the context and Lyndon Johnson, relying on the math nerds, fighting a war in Vietnam without any concern about the Vietnamese. (He thought he would make them into Kansas Citians.) And David Sklansky, if Negreanu is correct, not thinking enough (or at all) about how so-and-so's recent divorce will effect how he plays his hand. Arrogance and hubris seem to come with the territory. Galileo, Le Corbusier, Sklansky--they have all gotten into trouble (in varying degrees) not because they were bucking conventional wisdom, but because they were arrogant.

So scientists all too often exhibit an unscientific scorn for practical knowledge. From a narrow scientific view, nothing is known until and unless it is proven in a tightly controlled experiment. Knowledge that arrives in any other form is not taken seriously.

But I get the point. As I posted in the other thread: I agree that if you can do the math, you probably have the ability to do anything. But just knowing the math is not enough. And thinking that just knowing the math is enough is as bad as not knowing the math.

[Jazza]

i agree with phzon about studying other things besided just maths, but i still reckon there is a correlation between a lacking of social skills, and math majors (i'm about 80% certain)

[Dan Mezick]

Verbal processing very much engages conscious mind/left brain neurological hardware.

It is therefore no surprise that first-rate engineering minds are adept at such processing.

What is a surprise is how much subjective experience informs so-called rational decision making. Recent experiments and research in neuroscience confirm this. The conclusions are that the processing of emotion neurologically generates "a feeling" which is typically body-based in terms of outputs from the thinking (processing) of emotions. These feelings when accessed can substantially improve decision-making. The process of accessing feelings for use in decision making is mostly a right-brained facility.

I suspect many math-logic types are typically not found in the performing or visual arts precisely for these reasons. Such individuals may study these topics but never actualize what is studied logically. The way this probably works has to do with the absence of feelings as inputs in overall processing of the material. Right-brained types process feelings automatically while "lefties" must work at it.

I suspect that the arts are not overpopulated with math-logic adepts. It's interesting that the post here makes reference to assumed stereotypical "sub-par" body characteristics of (math-logic, left-brain processing) nerds.

While math-logic types certainly have typical human bodies, they do not typically process the bodily expression of emotion-- which every human experiences. What this leads to is a relative absence of feeling in decision making.

It is interesting that the post here makes reference to the stereotyped sub-par physique supposedly typical of "nerds". It is as if the poster understands that from the viewpoint of most observers, left-brained math-logic people do NOT appear to fully leverage the body in intellectual processing.

Those who may be interested in the root of these ideas may like to read the books at Antonio Damasio, a brilliant neurologist. A true scientist, he breaks new ground in describing how body-based emotion coupled with logical processing generates feelings. And feeling turns out to be an important key.

He cites several examples where various subjects have various kinds of accidents, or diseases, which damage specific regions of the brain. From there he uses logic to draw conclusions about the neurological basis of logic, emotion, feeling, and decision making. It turns out the body plays a central role in 3 of 4 of these items.

It appears that feelings can rapidly reduce the set of probabilities to consider in decision-making, improving decision speed without degrading overall decision quality.

I currently believe that math-logic types (if they like) can deliberately choose to focus attention towards body-informed, right-brain processing, to develop it further. A math-logic adept who chooses to examine Damasio and incorporate some of his work would be someone I would prefer to completely avoid at the poker table. (Especially no-limit.)

Whether artsy-feeling types can deliberately develop strong facility in math-logic is a completely open question.

The key book from Damasio on this topic is
Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason and the Feeling Brain

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The idea that the mind exists as a distinct entity from the body has profoundly influenced Western culture since Descartes proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am." Damasio, head of neurology at the University of Iowa and a prominent researcher on human brain function, challenges this premise in a fascinating and well-reasoned argument on the central role that emotion and feelings play in human rationality. According to Damasio, the same brain structures regulating both human biology and behavior and are indispensable to normal cognitive processes. Damasio demonstrates how patients (his own as well as the 19th-century railroad worker Nicholas Gage) with prefrontal cortical damage can no longer generate the emotions necessary for effective decision-making.

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His other books are also great.