A Meeting of Minds: An Alternate Humor for Teaching Mathematics to non-STEM Majors

John Allen Paulos argued essentially for three forms of humor dear to mathematics: Incongruity, Gotcha, and Word Play. Unfortunately, these three are often combative forms and easily drive non-STEM majors out of mathematics and statistics. William Dunham in The Mathematical Universe shows how a fine mathematician can use humor to draw non-specialists in. Central to Dunham’s success is his use of Sympathetic Pain humor, which creates softer synthetic Reconciler, Consoler, or Bridgebuilder humor styles

Reflections on the Introduction of Quantitative Assessment in Persuasive Writing Classes

If quantitative reasoning is to be a legitimate part of composition curricula, it must be seen as a valuable tool for composition instructors to use in exploring their own subject. Composition instructors must see the relevance of QR not merely to their students in other subject areas but also directly in their literary and rhetorical studies and careers. Here we reflect on a highly successful program of using quantitative techniques in teaching advanced levels of professional rhetoric, namely persuasive speech and writing. We recount our 15-year experience of running an in-class, empirical and progressive experiment in group negotiations, the Legislative Simulation (LS). The LS provided statistically significant results, some eye-opening, reported in various publications, but here our reflections concern what such an experiment tells us about opportunities and challenges of using quantitative techniques for the improvement of teaching rhetoric in and for itself. It is clear from our experience that QR takes on a somewhat different appearance within the humanities requiring adjustments in pedagogy and expectations. None of the challenges, however, are insuperable, and the rewards for the discipline as well as for a quantitatively competent university are very great

Mathematics and Humor: John Allen Paulos and the Numeracy Crusade

John Allen Paulos at minimum gave the Numeracy movement a name through his book Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences. What may not be so obvious was Paulos’ strong interest in the relationship between mathematics and mathematicians on the one hand and humor and stand-up-comedian joke structures on the other. Innumeracy itself could be seen as a typically mathematical Gotcha joke on American culture generally. In this perspective, a Minnesotan acculturated to Minnesota-Nice Humor of Self-Immolation Proclivities (SImP) looks at the more raw-boned, take-no-prisoners humor style Paulos outlined in Mathematics and Humor and implemented in Innumeracy. Despite the difference in humor styles, there is much to applaud in Paulos’ analysis of the relationship between certain types of humor and professional interests of mathematicians in Mathematics and Humor. Much humor relies on the sense of incongruity which Paulos’ claims to be central to all humor and key to mathematical reductio ad absurdum. Mathematics is rightfully famous for a sense of combinatorial playfulness in its most elegant proofs, as humor often relies on clashing combinations of word play. And a great range of mathematical lore is best understood within a concept of a sudden drop from one sense of certainty to another (essentially a Gotcha on the audience). Innumeracy repeatedly exemplifies Gotchas on the great unwashed and unmathematical majority. Extensive empirical evidence over the last quarter century allows us to synthesize these Paulos observations into the idea that inculcated mathematical humor has strong propensities to complex Intellectual, Advocate, and Crusader humor forms. However, the Paulos humors do not include the Sympathetic Pain humor form, the inclusion of which may increase teaching effectiveness

Applied Mathematics in the Humanities: Review of Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences by Sidney Siegel and N. John Castellan, Jr. (2nd ed., 1988)

Sydney Siegel and N. John Castellan, Jr. Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, Second Edition (New York NY: McGraw Hill, 1988). 399 pp. ISBN: 9780070573574. Almost 60 years ago, Sidney Siegel wrote a stellar book helping anyone in academe to use nonparametric statistics, but ironically, 60 years after that achievement, American higher education confesses itself to be in the worst Quantitative Teaching Crisis of all time. The key clue to solving that crisis may be in Siegel and Castellan’s title, Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, which quietly and perhaps unconsciously excludes the Humanities. Yet it is in humanistic realities that students read, write, and think. This book review considers what could be done if the Humanities were made aware of the enormous power of nonparametric statistics for advancing both their disciplines and their students’ ability to think quantitatively. A potentially revolutionary, humanistic, nonparametric finding is considered in detail along with a brief account of tens of humanistic discoveries deriving from Siegel and Castellan’s impetus

Lewis Carroll and Mathematical Ideals of John Allen Paulos: Review of \u3cem\u3eAlice\u27s Adventures in Wonderland\u3c/em\u3e (1865) and \u3cem\u3eThrough the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There\u3c/em\u3e (1871)

At first blush it may seem that linking the acclaimed achievements of John Allen Paulos and the acclaimed achievements of Lewis Carroll (a.k.a. Oxford mathematics don Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) is merely an exercise in free association. Both are prestigious academic mathematicians. Both have an obvious interest in humor. Both have made it to best-seller lists. That free association, however, is not the issue here. Instead, the issue is whether John Allen Paulos has highlighted basic questions of mathematical literacy and whether the issues that Paulos highlights do not, in fact, reflect mathematical and artistic concerns of Lewis Carroll in writing his immortal classics, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through a Looking Glass. How can these immortal classics be read—given that they are written in a disguised, symbolic, and literary form—to explain Carroll’s wide attraction for adult mathematical and STEM-discipline audiences? And when we have read them so, do Carroll’s concerns adumbrate Paulos’ insistence on mathematics as a set of mind, a disjunction between that mindset and the mindset of the society around it? Specifically the intent of this paper is to suggest a consistent reading of Carroll in light of Paulos and to do so in such a way that it suggests important new directions for the discussion of Numeracy (as the opposite of Paulos’ Innumeracy) and for the discussion of Quantitative Literacy

Applied Mathematics in the Humanities: Review of \u3cem\u3eNonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences\u3c/em\u3e by Sidney Siegel and N. John Castellan, Jr. (2nd ed., 1988)

Sydney Siegel and N. John Castellan, Jr. Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, Second Edition (New York NY: McGraw Hill, 1988). 399 pp. ISBN: 9780070573574.Almost 60 years ago, Sidney Siegel wrote a stellar book helping anyone in academe to use nonparametric statistics, but ironically, 60 years after that achievement, American higher education confesses itself to be in the worst Quantitative Teaching Crisis of all time. The key clue to solving that crisis may be in Siegel and Castellan’s title, Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, which quietly and perhaps unconsciously excludes the Humanities.Yet it is in humanistic realities that students read, write, and think. This book review considers what could be done if the Humanities were made aware of the enormous power of nonparametric statistics for advancing both their disciplines and their students’ ability to think quantitatively. A potentially revolutionary, humanistic, nonparametric finding is considered in detail along with a brief account of tens of humanistic discoveries deriving from Siegel and Castellan’s impetus

Lewis Carroll and Mathematical Ideals of John Allen Paulos: Review of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)

At first blush it may seem that linking the acclaimed achievements of John Allen Paulos and the acclaimed achievements of Lewis Carroll (a.k.a. Oxford mathematics don Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) is merely an exercise in free association. Both are prestigious academic mathematicians. Both have an obvious interest in humor. Both have made it to best-seller lists. That free association, however, is not the issue here. Instead, the issue is whether John Allen Paulos has highlighted basic questions of mathematical literacy and whether the issues that Paulos highlights do not, in fact, reflect mathematical and artistic concerns of Lewis Carroll in writing his immortal classics, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through a Looking Glass. How can these immortal classics be read—given that they are written in a disguised, symbolic, and literary form—to explain Carroll’s wide attraction for adult mathematical and STEM-discipline audiences? And when we have read them so, do Carroll’s concerns adumbrate Paulos’ insistence on mathematics as a set of mind, a disjunction between that mindset and the mindset of the society around it? Specifically the intent of this paper is to suggest a consistent reading of Carroll in light of Paulos and to do so in such a way that it suggests important new directions for the discussion of Numeracy (as the opposite of Paulos’ Innumeracy) and for the discussion of Quantitative Literacy