The Media & Mathematics

How often do you hear a media professional say something like “Sure I was brutal at Mathematics at school – hated it with a vengeance - hahaha..”,

the subtext being – look it clearly didn’t do me any harm as here I am on RTE getting a fat fee for jabbering on about nothing in particular and displaying how witty I am. I suppose its only natural that people from a humanities background dominate in the media – after all they need to do something. And these put-downs of the sciences must be taken on the chin – any attempt at retaliation along the lines of “sure you are only a useless bunch of needy navel-gazing wasters” brings on an instant whinge about the humanities not being sufficiently valued. And these people surely need to feel valued.

The other day I heard an hilarious exchange on RTE radio when it was suggested that some-one might actually have been good at maths, and might indeed even have liked the subject. The poor man was indignant as he hastily protested that no, he was brutal at maths, absolutely hated it. He was clearly horrified that he might be considered as being outside of the national consensus. And that consensus is about fear and loathing of math. The damage done by this sort of idle chatter is inestimable. You certainly would not get away with boasting of illiteracy (hahaha, can’t read or write, aren’t I the gas man?), and yet boasting about innumeracy is completely acceptable. And this shows up in numerous ways – billions and millions routinely mixed up and a complete inability to absorb the significance of statistics (and indeed as many politicians would be aware, it is trivially easy to fool the Irish public by misuse of statistics). In fact it would not be too much of a stretch to suggest that national innumeracy might have played a part in the mess that is our current financial/economic situation.

And yet as is now generally accepted, producing graduates with world class maths skills is vital to our national well-being. Bluntly put, multi-nationals are not attracted to set up in Ireland because of the theatre scene. Instead we produce commentators whose job is to commentate on other commentators. It’s a national characteristic – we much admire clever commentary on the activities of others, rather than actually attempt something ourselves. This is of course recognised by specifically Irish terms such as “begrudgery”, or “hurlers on the ditch”. Unfortunately it encourages a strongly anti-innovation culture.

It is often claimed that Ireland has a great tradition in Mathematics. However a close examination of the role of honour reveals that most of Ireland’s famous mathematicians were of a distinctly Anglo flavour, and although they may have worked here (as part of the then UK), they could not be considered as representative of a long native tradition.

Which isn’t to say that such a tradition cannot be started right now…