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Comment by FreqSep | Hacker News Reader

Why does this argument not apply to any subject that a number of students find challenging? If the education system were based on this kind of thinking we would basically have no classes.

I certainly have NEVER used biology at work, and I didn’t do well in it in high school or college.

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Washing your hands in the bathroom is an example of using biology at work. Only recently doctors would refuse to do it before surgery because nobody could explain what it did, so it wasn’t logically correct to do it.

Do you need to memorize the names of various bacteria in order to see that your hands become less dirty when you wash them? No.

But you need to know how aerosol transmission works to know why disposable towels are cleaner than hand dryers.

Because for those other subjects it's often correct, so it would be to knock in an open door.

Math has a much stronger claim to be generically useful. Related fields, such as physics may in fact be seen something worth studing more because it teaches you how to apply math, than for the likelihood that you may end up in a job that requires the physics itself.

My own experience is that math/stats is by far the most useful (non language) topic I studied in school/university, even more so that Computer Science (and I work in IT).

Biology is never touted as something that will be helpful in the workplace. But if you learn what viruses and bacteria are and internalize the fact that we are all made of cells and are immersed in a world of micro organisms, maybe when someone explains to you what a vaccine does or how your diet affects your gut bacteria you will not fall from the sky and claim it's a satanic ploy

Math explains how insurance, engineering, science, and economics work. Almost everyone needs to know that stuff to make good decisions.

All of these things can be explained to a layman in a few minutes. What are the remaining hundreds of hours for?

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