I think Rick Tarara's deprecation of his nonscience students* is an
example of mistaken judgment. In the olden days a large fraction of
the very brightest students went into the sciences in university. At
that time the relative number of these very brightest (and numerate)
students in nonscience disciplines was small. That is no longer the
case. All students deserve the truth when we know it, and if we give
them lies in the form of "simplifications" without caveats they will
justly judge us badly for doing so.
I think my experiment has made my point. I am not eager to carry on
in this thread.
Leigh
*"I don't say that the brightness is DIRECTLY proportional to the
current, and BELIEVE ME, with this group, no one assumes such a
thing--for 90% such a mathematical relationship would never occur
to them."