"Hawke" writes:

Here's the problem. You guys that can do and understand math remind me of
the basketball players that say I don't see what's so hard about dunking a
basketball and why can't you do it. All my friends can. Most people just
can't understand math. The people who do understand it think it's easy and
can't see why others don't get it. Just like the basketball player.

I'm actually sort of intermediate on that -- I found both of the big
abstraction steps in math (algebra and calculus) to be very difficult,
but I was able to get past them. I certainly recognize that some
people find math much harder than I do, while others (my son comes to
mind) find it much easier. And, yes, I do have some degrees that
require lots of math.

To me
math is like when you go to the eye doctor and they show you the color
blindness charts where it's a circle filled with colored dots and there is a
number in the middle, which you can see if you're not colorblind. But if
you're color blind you can't see anything. That's math. If you get it you
can see the number in the circle if you can't you see nothing. Most people
could never complete a class in trig, calculus, or what comes after. It
takes a certain type of brain to understand that stuff. Those of you who get
it are lucky. Most of us are not. Even so, I still think there are other
classes that would be more helpful for most students than mathematics. Aside
from Goodwill Hunting, I've never seen a janitor or anyone working
construction, or on an oil rig, or selling cars, or cage fighting, or so
many other jobs doing equations. Like you said, most people can't even do
simple arithmetic, but I can understand why.

You've certainly picked some professions there that don't require
(much) math. But not many of us are cage fighters, and not many of us
want to be janitors. On the other hand, when I've bought cars, being
told absolutely stupid things about the vehicle's specifications that
even a moment's reflection would show as stupid pretty much eliminates
a salesman's credibility on everything else he tells me, as well.

By the time the person working construction has moved up past
spreading concrete to figuring out how much concrete to spread, or by
the time a machinist is doing anything beyond setting up the machine
according to what somebody else told him, a little bit of algebra and
trig becomes worth whatever difficulty was involved in learning it.
It's pretty much a requirement.

I finally took a community college class in welding last summer -- one
of the most difficult courses I've ever taken, and I know I'll never
be good at it (my welds at this point have improved all the way to
"pathetic"), but even the little things I can do with a MIG have made
it possible to take on projects I never could before. Struggling
through some algebra and trig is much the same.