Society seems to think pretty highly of arithmetic. It’s one of the first things we learn as children. So I think it’s weird that only a tiny percentage of people seem to know how to actually use arithmetic. Or maybe even understand what arithmetic is for.
I was a bit thrown off by the seeming mismatch between the title (“underrated”) and this introduction (“rated highly, but not used or understood as well as dynomight prefers”).
The explanation seems straightforward: arithmetic at the fluency you display in the post is not easy, even with training. If you only spend time with STEM-y folks you might not notice, because they’re a very numerate bunch. I’d guess I’m about average w.r.t. STEM-y folks and worse than you are, but I do quite a bit of spreadsheet-modeling for work, and I have plenty of bright hardworking colleagues who can’t quite do the same at my level even though they want to, which suggests not underratedness but difficulty.
(To be clear I enjoy the post, and am a fan of your blog. :) )
I was a bit thrown off by the seeming mismatch between the title (“underrated”) and this introduction (“rated highly, but not used or understood as well as dynomight prefers”).
The explanation seems straightforward: arithmetic at the fluency you display in the post is not easy, even with training. If you only spend time with STEM-y folks you might not notice, because they’re a very numerate bunch. I’d guess I’m about average w.r.t. STEM-y folks and worse than you are, but I do quite a bit of spreadsheet-modeling for work, and I have plenty of bright hardworking colleagues who can’t quite do the same at my level even though they want to, which suggests not underratedness but difficulty.
(To be clear I enjoy the post, and am a fan of your blog. :) )
I don’t know if it is a mismatch, actually. Many things are rated highly but still underrated, and vice versa.
That’s fair.