They teach percentages in school still, why do people not understand them? They're not very complicated. Maybe the same people who didn't understand it in the first place didn't have a good enough diet to be able to pay attention in maths lessons.
I once had to explain percentages to a Consultant Cardiologist in the middle of a high level meeting. He couldn't understand that the percentage got smaller as the denominator got bigger.
I'm not sure about his diet, but I am fairly sure that he spent many, many years in various institutes of learning.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 09:57 pm (UTC)I'm not sure about his diet, but I am fairly sure that he spent many, many years in various institutes of learning.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 10:04 pm (UTC)I am going to start taking some exercise really, really soon, and never take up smoking, and try and reduce my stress levels. Yeek.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-21 12:04 am (UTC)It was a few years back but these X cases were Y percent of one population and <y percent of a second population which was bigger.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 10:18 pm (UTC)"We're going to learn about 10% first, because that's easy. To find 10% you divide by 10"
He gets all the 10% questions right, and then follows the pattern he has been taught, dividing by 20 to get 20%, by 40 to get 40%, etc...
What I found more depressing was that the teacher had just marked his answers wrong, instead of noticing what the problem was.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-21 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-23 09:43 am (UTC)