My brother has a PhD in pure mathematics. Sometimes I get in trouble (yes, hyperbole) with him because, while I'm pretty decent at arithmetic and I like numbers, he knows so much more about either than I do. For example, I recently said that 57 was a boring number (I tried to connect it to 17, which I like, but was thinking of 19, which is fine) and learned quite a lot from both him and some lemmings.
Another time I told him that I thought there was debate about whether 2 was prime and I subsequently got quite a lecture on the nature of primality.
Point I'm trying to make is, give at least some math graduates at least some credit.
I suppose it depends on what you value. Language is more of a creative venture while math is more of a technical one. "Credit" is also somewhat of a nebulous term.
majors? you mean bachelors? PhDs get PhD respect. Bachelors get Bachelor respect. It's not the subclassification of study, it's the level. if you only have a bachelors, you get less respect than a masters and so on.
According to the aforementioned brother with a doctorate, the only thing having a PhD indicates is that you can talk for a long time.
I don't know if that's true - I never have been and never will be in that lofty section of academics. Even if I were qualified, and I'm not, I'm not sure it sounds like much fun.
But it's also important to remember that access to education isn't always something one can directly influence.
My brother is the only PhD I know on a personal level and I can confirm that he is very smart and worked very hard to get to where he is. I assume that that's true of most people with similar credentials. However, one shouldn't automatically dismiss someone because they lack that qualification.
Of all the numbers to call boring you picked the Grothendieck prime.
2 is unambiguously prime. The best motivation for the definition of primality I know is the fundamental theorem of arithmetic: every integer greater than 1 can be uniquely decomposed into a product of primes. That's what primes are, and the uniqueness constraint is why 1 is not prime.
It's weird how we use the word for a teacher as a name for physicians.
I actually don't think we should require physicians to be doctors. Medicine doesn't really have a lot to do with teaching. We do need some PhDs in medicine, but I don't think physicians need to be qualified to teach.
A PhD is a Doctor of Philosophy while a MD is a Doctor of Medicine. So I guess in that way the title "Doctor" radically changes based on the field kinda like the title "Engineer".
Yeah I'm saying physicians shouldn't have MDs. They should have some other non-teaching physician qualification, or a PhD in medicine.
You shouldn't be able to get an MD at a Bachelor or Master level. And patients should not expect to see a doctor when they walk into a clinic or hospital.
I think you have things backwards. PhDs are just proof of becoming an expert researcher in a field, and MDs are just proof of becoming a practitioner of medicine.
Some who get PhDs or MDs become teachers because of their proficiency, but the purpose of PhDs and MDs isn't to become teachers.
If we're putting effort into fixing how society uses words, can we work on flammable versus inflammable first? Then I vote for fixing the odd one out in the terrible, terrific, horrible, horrific quad. Then the split between awful and awe. Then...
You're making a semantic argument, which is kinda useless because what you're suggesting wouldn't change anything substantially, just the language we use to describe it. People would still go to the same programs to get the same qualifications, they would just be called something different.
But language has inertia, and you're never going to get people to stop calling them doctors, no matter how much you insist that they're called "health engineers" or "A&P technicians" or whatever you come up with.
Why not focus on something else like the much-needed systemic reforms in healthcare; getting business interests out of the medical system; socializing and universalizing healthcare if you live in a backwater country like the US; making sure mental, vision, hearing, and dental are included in that; training enough medical professionals and opening enough clinics to reduce waitlists and ensure everyone has timely access to the care they need; updating standard practices to be consistent with cutting edge research (this is especially important in mental healthcare!); actually funding research to find effective treatments even if that means entrenched healthcare companies offering subpar options have to adapt or become obsolete; et cetera.
So many things to be concerned with that are more important than what we call the people with a medical degree...
Reforming the medical system is a pointless waste of time. We need to ban fossil fuels and animal agriculture. Animals are being slaughtered by the millions by factory farms. We shouldn't waste time improving the way we care for humans, when humans are already doing so much better than other creatures like cows and corals. It's a waste of effort to secure such marginal improvements for humans, when we can do so much more for animals.
Actually, never mind. Dismissing problems by comparing them to bigger problems, AKA whataboutism, doesn't actually make the world a better place. It doesn't increase effort spent on the big problems, it just reduces effort on the smaller ones and makes the world a worse place. I retract the above paragraph; medical care reform is important too, even if it's less impactful. And physicians calling themselves doctors, though relatively inconsequential, still annoys the crap out of Me.
For what it's worth, patient education is a necessary component of any medical interaction. Most medical doctors need to be able to teach. Unless you're a pathologist I guess, and never speak directly to the patients.
I see the standard assortment of ancient reddit reposts are making their rounds through Lemmy. Good. Gooooood. Soon you will be more powerful than the both of us.
Why did this jerk speak up in an emergency? To confuse people? Sheesh (yes I know it's part of the joke blah blah but let me take a moral high ground on an argument in my head for a second)
OK I get that - but in this fake scenario how many math PhDs would seriously be like "oh I'm a doctor that might be useful on an airplane right here right now"
c'mon that makes no sense
I get it's a joke and all but if a PhD is that full of themself then they need to take a break lol
57 Comments
a14o@feddit.org · 74 pts · 36d
as if math graduates could do that sort of addition in their head
toynbee@piefed.social · 21 pts · 36d
My brother has a PhD in pure mathematics. Sometimes I get in trouble (yes, hyperbole) with him because, while I'm pretty decent at arithmetic and I like numbers, he knows so much more about either than I do. For example, I recently said that 57 was a boring number (I tried to connect it to 17, which I like, but was thinking of 19, which is fine) and learned quite a lot from both him and some lemmings.
Another time I told him that I thought there was debate about whether 2 was prime and I subsequently got quite a lecture on the nature of primality.
Point I'm trying to make is, give at least some math graduates at least some credit.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 36d
Is the amount of credit I should give them less than, equal to, or greater than the amount of credit I should give English majors?
toynbee@piefed.social · 5 pts · 36d
I suppose it depends on what you value. Language is more of a creative venture while math is more of a technical one. "Credit" is also somewhat of a nebulous term.
tempest@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 36d
I don't know, once math becomes Greek letters and mathematician names it sort of seems to circle back around.
toynbee@piefed.social · 9 pts · 36d
That's a really excellent point.
Quantenteilchen@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 35d
Didn't they just talk about circling back, not back into itself?
Don't you drop a dimension from this deep conversation!
toynbee@piefed.social · 1 pts · 34d
Are you picturing, like, a spring?
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 35d
majors? you mean bachelors? PhDs get PhD respect. Bachelors get Bachelor respect. It's not the subclassification of study, it's the level. if you only have a bachelors, you get less respect than a masters and so on.
toynbee@piefed.social · 1 pts · 24d
According to the aforementioned brother with a doctorate, the only thing having a PhD indicates is that you can talk for a long time.
I don't know if that's true - I never have been and never will be in that lofty section of academics. Even if I were qualified, and I'm not, I'm not sure it sounds like much fun.
But it's also important to remember that access to education isn't always something one can directly influence.
My brother is the only PhD I know on a personal level and I can confirm that he is very smart and worked very hard to get to where he is. I assume that that's true of most people with similar credentials. However, one shouldn't automatically dismiss someone because they lack that qualification.
kogasa@programming.dev · 3 pts · 35d
Gotta add context for readers.
Of all the numbers to call boring you picked the Grothendieck prime.
2 is unambiguously prime. The best motivation for the definition of primality I know is the fundamental theorem of arithmetic: every integer greater than 1 can be uniquely decomposed into a product of primes. That's what primes are, and the uniqueness constraint is why 1 is not prime.
tias@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 34d
There's more than one way to multiply numbers to get 1?
kogasa@programming.dev · 1 pts · 34d
1, 11, 11*1, etc
tias@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 33d
But by that reasoning, 7 is not prime because you can do 7, 1*7, 1*1*7 etc.
kogasa@programming.dev · 1 pts · 33d
Hence why 1 is not considered prime
tias@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 33d
So what are the prime factors of 1?
toynbee@piefed.social · 1 pts · 35d
Are you my brother?
Bubs@lemmy.zip · 37 pts · 36d
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 2 pts · 36d
It's weird how we use the word for a teacher as a name for physicians.
I actually don't think we should require physicians to be doctors. Medicine doesn't really have a lot to do with teaching. We do need some PhDs in medicine, but I don't think physicians need to be qualified to teach.
Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 15 pts · 36d
Physicians don't require PhDs, they require MDs.
A PhD is a Doctor of Philosophy while a MD is a Doctor of Medicine. So I guess in that way the title "Doctor" radically changes based on the field kinda like the title "Engineer".
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 2 pts · 36d
Yeah I'm saying physicians shouldn't have MDs. They should have some other non-teaching physician qualification, or a PhD in medicine.
You shouldn't be able to get an MD at a Bachelor or Master level. And patients should not expect to see a doctor when they walk into a clinic or hospital.
Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 36d
I think you have things backwards. PhDs are just proof of becoming an expert researcher in a field, and MDs are just proof of becoming a practitioner of medicine.
Some who get PhDs or MDs become teachers because of their proficiency, but the purpose of PhDs and MDs isn't to become teachers.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 1 pts · 36d
If the purpose of an MD isn't to be a teacher, why do they use the word doctor? Doctor means teacher. Pick a different word!
I'm staring to think MDs aren't actually doctors!
ericwdhs@discuss.online · 4 pts · 35d
If we're putting effort into fixing how society uses words, can we work on flammable versus inflammable first? Then I vote for fixing the odd one out in the terrible, terrific, horrible, horrific quad. Then the split between awful and awe. Then...
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 35d
no. also you missed horrid
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 35d
You're making a semantic argument, which is kinda useless because what you're suggesting wouldn't change anything substantially, just the language we use to describe it. People would still go to the same programs to get the same qualifications, they would just be called something different.
But language has inertia, and you're never going to get people to stop calling them doctors, no matter how much you insist that they're called "health engineers" or "A&P technicians" or whatever you come up with.
Why not focus on something else like the much-needed systemic reforms in healthcare; getting business interests out of the medical system; socializing and universalizing healthcare if you live in a backwater country like the US; making sure mental, vision, hearing, and dental are included in that; training enough medical professionals and opening enough clinics to reduce waitlists and ensure everyone has timely access to the care they need; updating standard practices to be consistent with cutting edge research (this is especially important in mental healthcare!); actually funding research to find effective treatments even if that means entrenched healthcare companies offering subpar options have to adapt or become obsolete; et cetera.
So many things to be concerned with that are more important than what we call the people with a medical degree...
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 1 pts · 35d
Reforming the medical system is a pointless waste of time. We need to ban fossil fuels and animal agriculture. Animals are being slaughtered by the millions by factory farms. We shouldn't waste time improving the way we care for humans, when humans are already doing so much better than other creatures like cows and corals. It's a waste of effort to secure such marginal improvements for humans, when we can do so much more for animals.
Actually, never mind. Dismissing problems by comparing them to bigger problems, AKA whataboutism, doesn't actually make the world a better place. It doesn't increase effort spent on the big problems, it just reduces effort on the smaller ones and makes the world a worse place. I retract the above paragraph; medical care reform is important too, even if it's less impactful. And physicians calling themselves doctors, though relatively inconsequential, still annoys the crap out of Me.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 35d
you mean like Nurse Practitioners?
zikzak025@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 35d
For what it's worth, patient education is a necessary component of any medical interaction. Most medical doctors need to be able to teach. Unless you're a pathologist I guess, and never speak directly to the patients.
unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz · 14 pts · 36d
If you divided them horizontally, they would stop
aeronmelon@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 36d
Most people stop if you divide them horizontally.
Opisek@piefed.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 36d
Only most?
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 35d
only most
NoForwadSlashS@piefed.social · 3 pts · 36d
Some are worms
Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 35d
Lieutenant Dan!
WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 35d
Only a flesh wound
Miller@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 36d
Did they have the poisson for the in-flight meal.
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 35d
I see the standard assortment of ancient reddit reposts are making their rounds through Lemmy. Good. Gooooood. Soon you will be more powerful than the both of us.
rmuk@feddit.uk · 4 pts · 35d
It could also be one person who is having both a heart attack and an asthma attack.
PhoenixAlpha@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 35d
Oho, but the cunning mathematician never specified the units. They could easily have meant two medical incidents, not two people!
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 35d
Not a cunning mathematician. There could be many unnoticed medical incidents. They should have said "at least 2".
Gonzako@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 35d
Its a math degree, not group theory
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 35d
It's a bad math degree that doesn't cover group theory.
Sir_Premiumhengst@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 35d
Is there a doctor around? There's someone who has 30 minutes to respond to a funding call and needs help ASAP.
tacosanonymous@mander.xyz · 2 pts · 36d
Those are not good odds.
openchan@piefed.social · -3 pts · 35d
Why did this jerk speak up in an emergency? To confuse people? Sheesh (yes I know it's part of the joke blah blah but let me take a moral high ground on an argument in my head for a second)
FatVegan@leminal.space · 4 pts · 35d
Because he's a doctor and doesn't know what kind of doctor they are looking for.
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 35d
Non-ambiguous use of language is important in our training.
openchan@piefed.social · 0 pts · 32d
Lmao hopefully common sense and reading the room is too bud
No wonder academia is fucked
openchan@piefed.social · 0 pts · 35d
OK I get that - but in this fake scenario how many math PhDs would seriously be like "oh I'm a doctor that might be useful on an airplane right here right now"
c'mon that makes no sense
I get it's a joke and all but if a PhD is that full of themself then they need to take a break lol
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 35d
He's helping with the mathematical aspects of the emergency. He's doing the best he can!