I was speaking today with a cycle mechanic, trying to remember the electronic spec of an e-quadricycle and I mixed my numbers up because dyscalculia frequently makes me do that. He knows I'm a grad student in plant science and said, "How can you be in science when you can't do math?"
I cannot tell you how often I've heard this from both people inside and outside of STEM. #DisabledAndSTEM
How many people are we not allowing to proceed in STEM because we assume that math is the most important part of all the various skills in STEM, as if STEM were not a team effort?
How many people who have a high aptitude in math yet also have low ethics are we continuing to promote in STEM because we put an outsized value on "good at math"?
How many things are we missing in various sciences right now due to thinking that quantitative approaches are all we need?
@ml
Um...beg to disagree but math involves analytical skills even when people make mistakes with the numbers, so I've always stressed to people how important it is for everyone, "aptitude" or not, to be math-literate. That's where critical thinking lives.
One doesn't progress well in STEM without some semblance of analytical skill.
I daresay that Samuel Clemes was a brilliant writer but a crappy analyst: "There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics".
A certain biological PhD in Atlanta comes to mind, making "influential" pronouncements about monarch butterflies because he can't handle how to properly read statistics.
@ml
You said that. I did not and I will thank you to refrain from putting your words in my mouth. That's deception.
@ClaraListensprechen4 Having dyscalculia is not the same as "not having analytical skill. Good day.