People's distaste for Science/Maths

[Silent Anima]

I like science, but I find math to be one of the dullest things I've ever tried to learn. I rank it there with watching paint dry on the dullness scale.

That's generous of you giving math that high of a rating.
OT: I feel the same as the guy I quoted.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Math isn't very interesting to a majority of high school/college level kids in America. Probably because its just not very interesting. Science is also a relatively boring topic unless you're devoutly into it.
Now... as to the jerkoff mentality of American HS/College kids... most of those people are more interested in partying/getting laid than their future. And most of them will end up managing a fast food restaurant with their "I couldn't figure out what to major in" general degrees, or be some mid-level paper pusher in some boring corporation because they put the 1/3 effort it takes to scrape by and pass. Probably some of them are pissed off that their dreams of being a sports hero died, or that being popular in High School doesn't mean jack in the real world and are jealous of people who actually know what they want to do in life (and are good at what they do).
However, a counterpoint to you, the OP, is this. There is no requirement for anyone to respect or like what you do. And since you're in a minority topic, average people will probably be bored with your views as it does not interest them. They may "owe" their lifestyle or quality of life to technological advances, but there is no requirement for them to enjoy or like the topic of how it came to be. A lot of technology is above most people's heads. They simply don't think like that and it may be more a failing on your part to realize that some people don't have the same mindset. Maybe another part is realizing that if you spend all your time around this area, and have nothing else to talk about, it might come across as boring as well. I'm not making any judgements here tho, just pointing out areas you may be missing. Its all about how you can relate to other people as well as how they relate to you. Remember the average person knows enough to get by, but not always how the things they use to get by work, and it may be that to get by socially you need to make allowances for their limitations.

 

[Eggsnham]

-Le Snippity-

I read most of your post, so I have to say this:

I don't like math, I'm not good at it, and it irritates me how much people want to shove it down my throat because it's so important to our society. And it is, I just have no interest in it. Some people do, some people don't. Let the people with the interest and skills in Math do their thing, and everybody else can go their path.

As for science, I have some interest in it, and I'm decent with the high school level stuff, but I don't feel like I could happily pursue a career in it.

I like to write, and I'm like to do stand up, I'm not a scientist or mathematician.

 

[Crazy_Man_42]

Well at my high school we are kinda equal and if you are good at it then your fine because we know that not everyone else is going to be good at everything. Well unless your one of my friends that get at me for preferring english and literature over science and math and i bet he thinks I'm stupid for not liking science and math or for being good at it.

People like to feel superior to others in anyway possible even though they have a different set of skills and likes compared to others.

But I do have to be truthful here I do look down on people who are scientists because I have watched The Colony on Discovery and pretty much saw that those who became scientists or something with science or math were generally confused or just completely clueless to how things worked and how to operate in that type of setting. But they were still useful in creating things like the little power plant and such but with other things like security, scavenging, and more manuel labor type of jobs they were rather clueless and endangered everyone else because of it.

I class everyone into two groups the book smart people and then the common sense people. Most scientist's are in the book smart group which means they are good at school and other academic pursuits and in labs but when given like an apocalypse type setting or a stranded type setting well they are lacking in the skills needed to survive which is where the common sense people come who are people like handy men or people in the military and such. But of course they just have different sets of skills that work well in some situations and in some other situations their skills don't help much.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Hmm, my male friend always teases me about how illogical I can be sometimes he says I have my 'head down the rabbit hole' but he also envies my creativity and whimsy.

I love science and find it enthralling especially computer science and biology and I can be quite excellent at maths when I want.

I'm somewhat crippled by anxiety issues involving maths and I also have to double check my answers because I don't believe it is correct. That makes me hate it somewhat. I can do algebra and equations okay if I work through them on paper. I'm not very good at mental arithmatic like if someone randomly shouts a sum at me. I find maths horribly dull but I can see how it is important.

I'm pretty much more of a history, literature and art kind of person.

I'm the only person I know that has both a BA (in History) and a BSc (in Computer Science). I think I could quite happily complete a Biology degree if I had the money.

 

[seule]

I left school in 96 had absolutely no intention of doing math/science because it had been force fed to me for 12 years.

Currently in my 3rd year of an education/math degree now, because I like math and I'm good at it, same thing with teaching, just took me a few years to figure it out.

It's a natural reaction to hate something when its forced on you, and lets face it, in almost every education system, math/science is forced on us in some form.

 

[Thaa'ir]

Hm. I usually notice it coming from students of hard sciences or math majors to humanities and the arts.

From linguists, the hate seems to always flow towards English majors over here.

 

[jadias]

You just need to pick a 'cool' science. As a volcanologist, people tend to be interested in the fact that I study exploding mountains. It's still lots of physics, chemistry and maths, but it has a glossy, very awesome exterior. And obviously that's what important.

Also job prospects have me going cool places and doing outdoorsy things occasionally rather than sitting in a lab absolutely ALL the time, so that's a bonus too.

Bonus pictures:

I got to snowmobile across a glacier to get to that last one...

I picked the right career, I guess!

 

[Kargathia]

A mutual disdain between branches of academies? You don't say.

 

[fletch_talon]

But the OP didn't dismiss what someone interested in chem, the OP asked why other people dismissed this person's interest in chem.

however, he also likes to think himself as very smart and good at science (which as far as I can tell he isn't). My teacher asked him what he wanted to do at university and he said he wanted to do Chemistry, the teacher asked him why and he blurted out some text book definition of research to do with functional groups of organic chemicals which wasn't impressive to any science student at all.

Quote from the OP above. He is being extremely critical of someone interested in one of the sciences.

Verbal irony is a trope in which the intended meaning of a statement differs from the meaning that the words appear to express.

Situational irony involves an incongruity between what is expected or intended and what actually occurs.

Dramatic irony is an effect produced by a narrative in which the audience knows more about present or future circumstances than a character in the story.

Irony is a defined word, and since the OP's post does not fall into any of these definitions it is not Irony and no matter you may think it is not relative to the individual.

Situational irony.
The OP is asking that people be tolerant of people that study/are interested in the sciences.
The OP is being intolerant of someone else's interest in science.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

You need to pick a cool science. As a volcanologist, people tend to be interested in the fact that I study exploding mountains.

I bet you save damsels in distress on your snowmobile in the style of Pierce Brosnan. Oh and you also have to convince corrupt mayors of mountain towns to evacuate but they never listen!. Like every volcano movie EVER.

 

[jadias]

I bet you save damsels in distress on your snowmobile in the style of Pierce Brosnan.

Better believe it. I'm even British and my first name is James.

 

[Sarge034]

Snip

I was going to argue this, but someone beat me to the punch. See that post for my argument.

Snip

Well done good sir or madam.

 

[artanis_neravar]

But the OP didn't dismiss what someone interested in chem, the OP asked why other people dismissed this person's interest in chem.

however, he also likes to think himself as very smart and good at science (which as far as I can tell he isn't). My teacher asked him what he wanted to do at university and he said he wanted to do Chemistry, the teacher asked him why and he blurted out some text book definition of research to do with functional groups of organic chemicals which wasn't impressive to any science student at all.

Quote from the OP above. He is being extremely critical of someone interested in one of the sciences.

No (s)he is being critical of the person's understanding of and reason behind wanting to study Chemistry. The OP never said he was stupid for liking chemistry, just that he doesn't seem to do good in science classes/topics and offered a very uninspiring reason for wanting to study chemistry.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I bet you save damsels in distress on your snowmobile in the style of Pierce Brosnan.

Better believe it. I'm even British and my first name is James.

Le Swoon.

That pic of you in the red dust cloud (iron oxide??) is some scary stuff D: You look like you are on Mars.

 

[fletch_talon]

But the OP didn't dismiss what someone interested in chem, the OP asked why other people dismissed this person's interest in chem.

however, he also likes to think himself as very smart and good at science (which as far as I can tell he isn't). My teacher asked him what he wanted to do at university and he said he wanted to do Chemistry, the teacher asked him why and he blurted out some text book definition of research to do with functional groups of organic chemicals which wasn't impressive to any science student at all.

Quote from the OP above. He is being extremely critical of someone interested in one of the sciences.

No (s)he is being critical of the person's understanding of and reason behind wanting to study Chemistry. The OP never said he was stupid for liking chemistry, just that he doesn't seem to do good in science classes/topics and offered a very uninspiring reason for wanting to study chemistry.

You're right, he didn't say he was stupid for liking science, he said (or implied) that he was too stupid to like science.

The expected behaviour of someone arguing "for" the study of science, is to encourage people who are interested in science. Instead the OP reacted to this other person's interest with elitism, as if to say science is too good for them.

Not only is it ironic, its also counter productive to the OPs cause. If he's going to be judgmental of anyone who wants to pursue an education in the sciences, then people are going to think its an elitist field of study and potentially avoid it.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

I never looked down on anyone who's specialties were Science and Maths (although the entire University system in Britain seems to look down on me because I didn't excel in them).

The reason I personally didn't like the subjects very much is because they just seem so... cold, to me. This is just my opinion so please don't hate me, but I much prefer theater, art, music and literature, which are all about emotion. Seeing the beauty in the world and processing it though uplifting language and imagery. To me personally Science and Maths seemed to seek to understand that beauty in the world not by glorifying it, but by mutilating it down to it's base components. I never saw any sense of soul in chemicals and numbers, I could see soul in the things they could create, but not in the components themselves. I know I sound like an artsy prick writing this (and I probably am), but the best way I can think of describing it is I can get very excited by a beautiful house, but that does not mean I can become excited about each individual brick.

And to retort, here's the single most awesome being to have ever graced this planet with his presence:

I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is ... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.

Believe me, you do not see any soul in chemistry or math, because you do not understand it. You do not understand how profoundly beautiful the world is, how exciting it is to realize how some really complicated equations result in everything from the color of the sun and plants, to the shape of the earth, to how hitting a few buttons on a machine will transmit information virtually instantly from "here" to "you." Imagine walking through a park and recognizing the pleasant smell of pine trees as camphor, recall its uses, how and how it is synthesized. Imagine realizing that not only can you see green better than any other color, but how it is the necessary result from chlorophyll taking in light at 500nm (the peak emission wavelength of the flaming ball of gas up in the sky), and releasing it at approximately 550nm. Imagine pondering how our ability to see green particularly well came about as an evolutionary adaptation, and how it was selected for. Hell, that's just two minutes of thinking after I got back from a lengthy bike ride with my brain half-fried from the bloody Texas heat...

So...anyway. I graduated exactly a month ago with two bachelor of science degrees, one in chemistry, the other in math. Mentioning this casually always had one of the following effects: "wow, you're so smart" (well, kinda, but why don't you save your praise for AFTER I have those bloody diploma things), or "wow, I could never do that" (don't know 'till you try, eh?). I know the disdain of science, but at least us sciency folk are a close-knit group. Sure, we may trash talk each other (fuck the following: biologists, engineers!), but deep down we all love each other. Science is a fun process, and discovering new things is immensely satisfying. I ran my own experiment during my junior year, and I was genuinely pleased with how it turned out. And I learned something about the creek on the UT campus that's kinda unsettling...

Something else I should mention is how frustrating it is to watch scientifically illiterate people discuss scientific concepts, or worse, theories. The obvious example is evolution (hint: established scientific theory = fact backed up by loads of data), but global warming is also a favorite of the retard crowd. It's even more infuriating when those same people are in charge of funding larger experiments. *sigh* don't vote for idiots, please?

 

[jadias]

Le Swoon.

That pic of you in the red dust cloud (iron oxide??) is some scary stuff D: You look like you are on Mars.

It's volcanic ash. The red colour has a lot to do with the time of day (evening). I drove right into the middle of the cloud pretty near the eruption site. The eruption in question being the pesky Eyjafjallajokull eruption in Iceland last year, which shut down so much airspace...

Double-bonus 'Mars' pic:

 

[Nickompoop]

I have no idea why people put more importance on social status and physical attributes over intelligence in high school. It might be because the "cool" kids in high school have no redeeming attributes besides muscles (for the males) and hotness (for the females). It almost seems like the dumber you are, the cooler you are. The reverse is also true. Sure, there are exceptions: occasionally you'll find that one smart jock, but they are extremely rare. However, there is the comforting fact that, once high school ends, intelligence reigns supreme and being smart will usually mean you earn more money. Of course, intelligence still isn't really valued by the mainstream culture, but I doubt many people on this site particularly like the mainstream culture.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Never encountered this kind of view outside the whigger groups in school. And in college the disdain goes to the media/art/music students from the science/math/literature students. Maybe its an american phenomena

I'm in England here, but haven't seen any disdain for students of any arts yet.
But I'm still at college, not at university.

What's the difference?

Well I'm English. I don't see the distain as such in the uni or when I was at college but I do in the general populous. Oh yeah and the uni admins who deal with budget, they really dislike us.

Edit: by "us" I mean physisists and I misinterpreted the question in the quote.

No big deal, I'm an engineer and I'm pretty sure the school administration dislikes us. Might be because one of our projects (most likely) requires a larger budget then any other departments entire budget. But either way we (the engineering students) Hate all of those business/arts majors, those bastards actually have a chance to see the sun and be outside during the day.

this is highly true, this past semester alone i gained like 15 pounds from studying/projects all the damn time while my business/art major friends A) didn't have finals as is, they just had a couple papers to turn in at the end and thats it and B) they always partied every weekend and never had to study/do homework...

u fucking hate engineering sometimes...