Why isn’t the fundamental theorem of arithmetic obvious? (2011)

Re:Why isn’t the fundamental theorem of arithmetic obvious? ... by delazeur on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @06:34PM (#11957575)

> I've seen that on LessWrong too, really smart math/CS people talking about biology can get demolished by a second year biology student.

IMO, LessWrong and other communities based around critical thinking tend to either foster a sense of intellectual arrogance or attract people who already have that quality.

> Sometimes I even feel that math/CS education has damaged me in some ways, made me too arrogant, though obviously it gave me a huge advantage in other way.

A lot of education in science and engineering is based around teaching people to walk up to a problem they are completely unfamiliar with and make a reasonable attempt at solving it. That is an extremely useful skill in some cases, but very dangerous in others.

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Re:Why isn’t the fundamental theorem of arithmetic obvious? ... by jdc on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @10:23PM (#11958474)

I generally agree, however I would like to know for what cases you think the skill of solving unfamiliar problems is dangerous.

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Re:Why isn’t the fundamental theorem of arithmetic obvious? ... by delazeur on Thursday June 23, 2016 @08:40AM (#11960430)

It's dangerous when it leads a person to choose "I'm going to figure this out on my own" over "I'm going to find someone who can solve this" in cases where they really should have known to pick the latter.

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Re:Why isn’t the fundamental theorem of arithmetic obvious? ... by lostlogin on Thursday June 23, 2016 @06:41AM (#11959998)

Watch what happens when you let the post doc PhD "help" set up a scan in the MR scanner. It's amazing/terrifying what a very clever person will do in an unfamiliar environment with different rules to the real world.

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