Re: [Phys-l] innumeracy

[Rick Tarara <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>]

Common now John, the population of the country you live in, the world you 
live on, that cities have millions of people--thus is not specialized 
knowledge.   These numbers effect almost every field of study--if only to 
estimate how many books your memoirs might sell!   You are sounding like an 
apologist for ignorance.  ;-(

Rick

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John M Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>


> This question is not a test of innumeracy, except possibly at the ends
> of the spectrum.  It is a test of crystallized knowledge.  A real test
> for numeracy is to have people compare numbers like 0.5 and 3/8.  The
> population of a given area is what might be called common shared
> knowledge.