Visualizing money

In his bestseller, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences (1988), John Paulos introduced the term “innumeracy” to refer to “an inability to deal comfortably with the fundamental notions of number and chance.” Paulos bemoaned that innumeracy “plagues far too many otherwise knowledgeable citizens.” Innumeracy causes many people to struggle with their own personal finances.   I've personally spoken to people who have taken out payday loans (about which I've written quite a bit), who cannot tell me what 10% of $100 is.   One problem, discussed extensively by Stanislas Dehaene (The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics (revised ed. 2011)) is that human animals are naturally rigged to understand zero, one, two, three  and four but on our own we cannot precisely identify or work with greater numbers.  To do that, we need an incredible human invention, mathematics, which provides us with an intellectual scaffolding for comparing and manipulating larger numbers.   Without a solid grasp of mathematics, humans are left only with vague intuitions about the numerical meaning of the world around them. How can we help those who are mathematically impaired?  Money counselors have often recommend that people stop depending so much on credit cards and operate more on cash. This does two things. First, it keeps you from spending more than you have. Second, it allows you to visualize what you are spending. It causes more pain to hand someone several $20 bills than to swipe a credit card, because you are actually seeing significant amount of cabbage leave your wallet. I thought of this problem of innumeracy as I viewed an excellent new graphic produced by a website called xkcd.com. The concept is simple, but the execution was excellent and designed to illustrate various salient political issues.  The result is an highly detailed image that allows you to see the numbers that are affecting our government and our lives.  I invite you to take a few moments (or longer) to visualize thousands, millions and billions of dollars.

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A new Declaration for America: to wake up from its delusions

With the help of a DI reader who wishes to remain anonymous, I have created the following Declaration for modern Americans to wake up from their delusions. I'd recommend that all adults and school children put their hands over their hearts in the morning and say the following instead of pledging allegiance to the powers-that-be (but see here for an alternate form of the Pledge).

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How Atheism Happens

There is a new series on the Pharyngula blog: Posts confessing "Why I Am An Atheist" gleaned from comments and responses. Some are well written, others not so much. But each is selected for showing a particular path into the light for people who have recovered from invisible friend addiction. The most recent post, Why I am an atheist – Adam, shows how an upbringing under the Ken Ham school of Young Earth Creation and science denialism eventually led him to an understanding of the willful ignorance and dishonesty that pervades that culture. Once he began to question the "facts" that he was raised with, he quickly climbed up toward rationalism and lost his religion.

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On teacher pay

According to a 2010 study, "The U.S. recruits most teachers from the bottom two-thirds of college classes, and, for many schools in poor neighborhoods, from the bottom third." This is not surprising, according to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, given that higher ranked college graduates can earn far more money in other fields:

McKinsey & Co. did a study (PDF) last year comparing the U.S. to other countries and found that America's average current teacher salaries -- starting around $35,000 and topping out at an average of $65,000 -- were set far too low to attract and retain top talent. The McKinsey report found that starting teacher salaries have not kept pace with other fields. In 1970, beginning New York City lawyers earned $2,000 more than first-year teachers. Today, a starting lawyer there can earn three or four times as much as a beginning teacher. Money is never the sole reason that people enter teaching. But it is a reason why some talented people avoid teaching -- or quit the profession when starting a family or buying a home. Other high-performing nations recruit teachers from the top third of college graduates. That must be our goal as well, and compensation is one critical factor. To encourage more top-caliber students to choose teaching, teachers should be paid a lot more, with starting salaries of $60,000 and potential earnings of $150,000.

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