in which i, once again, get all bitchy about having been called ignorant
2006-08-20 | 2:00 p.m.

When I was out with my friend the other night, it somehow came up that I'd never taken a calculus course.

I did a little bit of pre-calc in grade 12 math, and therefore have a very vague idea of what limits and derivatives are (very vague ... hey, it's been years), but that's about it.

He was horrified.

He informed me, and I quote, that I "don't know how the world works."

Okay, so folks who've taken calculus, tell me honestly ... was he being melodramatic? Is this the same sort of thing as the science major in my undergrad who told me I was uneducated and ignorant because I'm not good at mental arithmetic, or my former boss who was astounded that I, an arts major, hadn't been required to take a computer programming course?

Am I hopelessly uneducated and naive, adrift in a world I can't possibly understand, because I've never studied calculus? Or did he just say that because he's got blinkers associated with being an engineer and computer scientist who minored in math?

Because honestly (and I didn't say this, because it didn't occur to me until later) ... I feel like I could say the same thing about anyone who hasn't, formally or informally, studied basic statistics and research methodology, informal logic, and, for that matter, neurology or neuropsychology.

How can you possibly understand how the world works if you're not familiar with the scientific method? If you don't know how to interpret the results of a behavioural study or clinical trial? If you don't know how to spot a logical fallacy?

How can you ever hope to understand other people, or even yourself, if you don't know, at least a little bit, how the brain works?

But that's just my perspective, as someone whose interest and expertise are in psychology and linguistics. I don't think I'm any more full of shit than he is ... but who knows if I'm any less full of shit either?

So, hell. I guess I'll just have to let him go on thinking I don't understand anything at all because I don't understand calc. And meanwhile, I'll just silently remind myself that, well, he doesn't know a neurotransmitter from a Wada test.

So there.

looking back | looking forward