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There are two kinds of math: the hard kind and the easy kind. The easy kind, practiced by ants, shrimp, Welsh corgis—and us—is innate.
What innate calculating skills do we humans have? Leaving aside built-in mathematics, such as the visual system, ordinary people do just fine when faced with mathematical tasks in the course of the day. Yet when they are confronted with the same tasks presented as "math," their accuracy often drops.
But if we have innate mathematical ability, why do we have to teach math and why do most of us find it so hard to learn? Are there tricks or strategies that the ordinary person can do to improve mathematical ability? Can we improve our math skills by learning from dogs, cats, and other creatures that "do math"? The answer to each of these questions is a qualified yes. All these examples of animal math suggest that if we want to do better in the formal kind of math, we should see how it arises from natural mathematics.
From NPR's "Math Guy"—The Math Instinct will provide even the most number-phobic among us with confidence in our own mathematical abilities.
Customer Review: Has its faults, but a lot of interesting material
"The Math Instinct" is something of a hodge-podge, and I think it could be written better, but there is lots of really interesting material, and the reader can always skip chapters not of interest to him/her. I say the book isn't written that well, because Devlin doesn't do well enough with the more difficult concepts. I say it is a hodge podge because subjects such as the nautilus's shell have nothing to do with the rest of the book; in fact Devlin waits far too long to distinguish between computational skills of animals, such as their navigational skills, and the results of optimization through evolutionary trial and error (bee's hexagonal honeycomb) which has nothing to do with the animal brain's capacity for doing math. Amazingly, a numerical sense has been found to exist in baby's only a few days old, as well as in rats, etc. Brazilian children who could not master arithmetic in school, do great when they need to employ math in the marketplace. When math is abstract and rule based, without making sense, it is hard to learn or apply. It actually uses a part of the brain devoted to language rather than a part used for "natural" math (which incidentally grew out of the area used to control digits). Devlin addresses teaching math, but surprisingly doesn't have much too say, emphasizing repetitive practice rather than a change in presentation. For example, for reasons Devlin gives, learning 7 x 8 = 56 is particularly hard, so why not teach 7 x 8 = 7 x 7 + 7, thereby giving the idea of multiplication as a quick way to do some kinds of addition, and taking advantage of the kind of techniques untutored Brazilian working kids use in the marketplace?
Customer Review: Animal Instinct and Human Psychology
Although the word "math" appears in the title, this book is mainly about instinct and psychology. About half the book contains discussions on how animals instinctively do certain things that have some foundation in math. The other half of the book looks at how humans perceive and behave in math-related situations - from infancy to adulthood. The book is very well-written, very clear and easy to read. Those who are math phobic have nothing to fear here; in fact, they would likely find this book very interesting in the sense that they would learn something fascinating about themselves. Other than for those who are math phobic, this book has something for psychology buffs as well as animal lovers. But most importantly, it should grace the shelves of math educators as well as those who are interested in the reasons and possible cures for innumeracy.


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