This is ironic coming from such a math-phobic publication that regards complex numbers and "higher degree polynomials" as too befuddling for its readership:
http://www.dam.brown.edu/people/mumford/blog/2014/Grothendie...
http://www.dam.brown.edu/people/mumford/blog/2014/Grothendie...
I've gathered this set of ancedotal data from my experiences in high school, talking to my wife's co-doctors, and talking to my high school aged cousins.
It seems there's this expectation that they won't have to do math, but they will make money. Other professions that come up are lawyer and sales.
I guess my point, I'm not sure why people are math phobic. I imagine it's related to math related trauma in school. Even as an engineer, I find the hardest math I do is basic calc 1, and it's rare. Not to mention, doing algebra is a pretty rare event in general. Everything else we have calculators for.
It's also concerning to hear life saving jobs are primarily held by people who can't do math. If you can't do math, is it even science?
Some people. There is a wide range of people's natural aptitudes. Some people are tone deaf, others can't wrap their mind around programming concepts like pointers, so no wonder some have trouble with math. Especially with abstract math.
> If you can't do math, is it even science?
Depends on your definition of math.
If you mean the difference between a quantitative field that deals with numbers and a qualitative field that doesn't, then doctors do plenty of math.
If you mean higher level math like number theory, there's plenty of science and engineering that can be done without it. I have an engineering book that avoids using calculus altogether.