Math is racist and driving inequality..

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aspendougy

Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
Sep 19, 2016 - 04:03pm PT
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2011/01/jbhe_africanamerican_phds_grossly_underrepresented_in_the_sciences/

In 2009, there were 25 blacks who earned Ph.D's in mathematics, and this article points out that it represents only 1.6% of the total for that year. Part of it is cultural. Asians parents expect their kids to be doctors & scientists, but black parents less so.
ontheedgeandscaredtodeath

Social climber
SLO, Ca
Sep 19, 2016 - 05:31pm PT
I heard an interview with the author. She obviously is not arguing that math itself has a bias. Rather it is various anylitical systems that are used to make important decisions are not validated and may have no real scientific grounding.
clinker

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2016 - 06:03pm PT
JEleazarian, But if you are obese because of racism, you will have to deal with gravity's effect more so than a lighter(skinned?) person.
So back to the original post. Math (really statistical analysis) has no more racism than gravity.

I heard last week on the news radio that 7-11 is bringing in better food options in some Bay area locations to address this problem.


by KATHERINE TIMPF September 8, 2014 5:58 PM @KATTIMPF Are racial microaggressions making you fat? One professor at an N.J. public university thinks so. A study by Rutgers University – Newark claims that minorities are obese because racial microaggressions cause them to eat fast food and avoid exercise. “When you are exposed to negative stereotypes, you may gravitate more toward unhealthy foods as opposed to healthy foods,” said Luis Rivera, the experimental social psychologist who conducted the study. “You may have a less positive attitude toward watching your carbs or cutting back on fast food, and toward working out and exercising,” he explained. Rivera said Hispanics who believed negative stereotypes about themselves were three times more likely to be overweight or obese — evidence that the obesity comes from believing the stereotypes. He said that these stereotypes were spread not only through the mass media, but also subconsciously through seemingly harmless social interactions, including so-called microaggressions. “There are more subtle ways in conversations and interactions with others,” he said. “Although people don’t say explicitly ‘you are A, you are B,’ there are ways in which those messages are communicated,. It could be teachers. It could be your parents. It could be your friends.” Rivera’s study appears in this summer’s edition of the Journal of Social Issues.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/387408/psychologist-minorities-are-obese-because-racism-katherine-timpf[/quote]
Chaz

Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
Sep 19, 2016 - 06:10pm PT
7-11 is bringing in better food options because the government wants places that accept public assistance for payment to stock something a little healthier than chips and Slim Jims.
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
Sep 20, 2016 - 11:47am PT
Part of it is cultural. Asians parents expect their kids to be doctors & scientists, but black parents less so.

It's not just east Asian parents. My sister and I were both math majors as undergrads (well, I was a math/econ double major), and my concentration in grad school was in econometrics. We both got seduced by the Dark Side, however, and became lawyers.

One day, we were both visiting our mother when one of her friends from Beirut was also visiting. After we left, her friend told my mother, "They're both smart. They could have been engineers."

John

P.S., John G., I developed my appreciation for Bayesian statistical analysis during graduate study of econometrics, coupled with working as an economic forecaster, so your father and I must have had a similar background.
i-b-goB

Social climber
Wise Acres
Oct 2, 2016 - 03:16pm PT

...who you gonna call?
jgill

Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
Oct 2, 2016 - 04:07pm PT
John E., my dad got an MA in math and worked as a statistician for both the Dallas Fed Reserve and the War Assets Adm in Houston after WWII, then got his terminal degree under Zimmerman at the U of Texas and thereafter enjoyed an academic career. He tried to get me to go into Bus Adm saying there was more $ there, but I didn't take the bait!
hobo_dan

Social climber
Minnesota
Oct 2, 2016 - 04:27pm PT
for sure 2+2--it's not black and white
ms55401

Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
Dec 31, 2016 - 09:09am PT
can any propeller-heads recommend some good advanced -- but not too advanced -- math classics to work through? I was thinking something along the lines of Walter Rudin, Principles of Mathematical Analysis

kind of interested in calculus/analysis and topology
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Dec 31, 2016 - 09:43am PT
ms5541, aren't there still some opportunities in set theory?
AP

Trad climber
Calgary
Dec 31, 2016 - 03:00pm PT
Use of big data could become a real issue if it isn't already.
Probably one of those things where we look back and think "Holy Sh#t this has been going on for how long? And it has had these effects? And we didn't see the bad stuff coming down the road?"
jgill

Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
Dec 31, 2016 - 04:12pm PT
ms55, I was a college math professor and occasional researcher for many years and the very best book I ever had or used, especially as an intro to analysis & topology, is "Introduction to Topology and Modern Analysis" by George F. Simmons, a late Colorado College professor. It's in the International Series in Pure and Applied Mathematics by McGraw-Hill. The original publication date is 1963. This book is easy to read, interesting, and touches on a large number of modern topics. It is superb.

It begins at the beginning with set theory and ends with commutative Banach algebras (I never got that far!).

Here it is
EdBannister

Mountain climber
13,000 feet
Dec 31, 2016 - 04:22pm PT
yup there is a math problem

1950 US black single parent households 4.8 %

enter Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society

2000 US black single parent households 83%

Those numbers are for the status of the household at the time of birth.
rgold

Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
Dec 31, 2016 - 04:27pm PT
can any propeller-heads recommend some good advanced -- but not too advanced -- math classics to work through? I was thinking something along the lines of Walter Rudin, Principles of Mathematical Analysis

If you liked Rudin, go on to read his graduate text Real and Complex Analysis.

If you are interested in complex analysis read Visual Complex Analysis by Needham---a fantastic book that lays out many of the usually hidden geometric underpinnings of the subject.

For undergraduate advanced calculus, the book Advanced Calculus by Buck is a classic.

You didn't mention anything involving algebra. Abstract Algebra by Dummit and Foote is one of the best general texts out there; particularly strong on examples. Don't anticipate getting through more than a fraction of what's there.

For linear algebra, Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces by Halmos is certainly the classic reference.

Topology is a problem. If you are interested in general topology and operator theory, then I think there is a clear winner: Introduction to Topology and Modern Analysis by Simmons. [Edit: Professor Gill has already recommended this book.] If a gentle introduction to knots appeals, then The Knot Book by Adams is a good bet. Nowadays, the standard introduction to general topology, covering spaces, and the fundamental group seems to be Topology by Munkres. An elementary introduction to manifolds is The Shape of Space by Weeks.

This is off the top of my head; I'm sure I've forgotten many worthy texts. And whole subjects are missing (combinatorics, differential geometry, differential equations and dynamical systems, number theory,...)
AP

Trad climber
Calgary
Jan 1, 2017 - 05:47am PT
Definition of a statistician:
Someone who can drown in an average of 6 inches of water
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Jan 2, 2017 - 10:12am PT
kind of interested in calculus/analysis and topology

the math profs have weighed in and given some good references... from a "practical mathematician's" (e.g. a physicist's) point-of-view I usually learn new mathematics from the standpoint of solving a problem I'm interested in... often I don't solve the problem so much as learn some new mathematics... but I find this a much more effective way, for me, to learn that new mathematics.

Not being mathematically inclined, at least not in the way of a mathematician (or at least the way I think of "doing" mathematics), I am usually content with the rather limited knowledge I gain, and depart the study long before all of its elegance is revealed to me...

what are you "kind of interested" in that leads you to your question?
Spiny Norman

Social climber
Boring, Oregon
Jan 2, 2017 - 10:52am PT
Ed Bannister: you need to think harder — a lot harder — about the difference between correlation and causality.
rbord

Boulder climber
atlanta
Jan 2, 2017 - 11:18am PT
enter Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society

The law of small numbers is a judgmental bias which occurs when it is assumed that the characteristics of a sample population can be estimated from a small number of observations or data points.

Humans are really good at it, in the same way that we're good at confirmation bias, and survivor bias. How much time do we have to think about it and how big is our processor?

There's other stuff to spend our brainpower on, and if it helps to believe one data point explains a million others ... more time/processing power to plan our escape when the zombie apocalypse comes.

Great society and zombie apocalypse - what more do we really need to know?
jgill

Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
Jan 7, 2017 - 10:04pm PT
I have to bring this Time cover back to page one - it's priceless!
Reilly

Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
Jan 7, 2017 - 10:20pm PT
Look, it's the Sharia Tower!
Messages 41 - 60 of total 67 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
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