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Breaking News: Science and Math are harder than Psychology and Sociology

Hand wringing in the New York Times about the lack of graduates in technology areas, the headline says it all: Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It’s Just So Darn Hard).

They notice for example
After studying nearly a decade of transcripts at one college, Kevin Rask, then a professor at Wake Forest University, concluded last year that the grades in the introductory math and science classes were among the lowest on campus. The chemistry department gave the lowest grades over all, averaging 2.78 out of 4, followed by mathematics at 2.90. Education, language and English courses had the highest averages, ranging from 3.33 to 3.36.
Well gee whiz there is a surprise - not.

Let's get real here, Brain Surgeons and Engineers do things where mistakes are obvious, the surgeons patients recover if he gets it right and they die if he doesn't. Likewise the engineers bridge carries the loads it was designed for for years and years or it collapses. Sociologists can just hide their ineptitude in waffle.

And if you want to come to grips with differential equations (a necessity if you want to build machines that actually work) you have to put the hard yards in, there is no way around, over or under this. Young Asians seem to have grasped this and do it while those of European origin might refer to party while studying English literature and political activism 101.

And this is showing as the West surrenders its birthright to the East.

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