EFTA01994763.pdf

To: [email protected][[email protected]]; Jeffrey [email protected]] From: Al seckel Sent: Tue 12/7/2010 1:23:45 PM Subject: Educational thinking skills project We have added an important new module to our proposal, but it does not effect our budget. Please pass it along. Thanks! Also, if there is anything else that they may need to evaluate our proposal. Appreciatively, Al Module: Numerology An enormous percentage of the population, including trained professionals in various fields, have an innate fear, "inability," and misunderstanding of how to deal rationally with very large numbers, probabilities, numerical comparisons, and the meaning of statistics and polls. This results in continual misinformed governmental policies, confused personal decisions, and an increased susceptibility to all kinds of pseudoscience, junk science, and medical quackery. A weatherman will announce that there is a 50 percent chance of rain on Saturday and 50 percent chance of rain on Sunday, and there was therefore a 100 percent chance of rain that weekend. In our growing Age of Information, Misinformation, and Disinformation, many people are largely misled by the media's focus on individuals, drama, and isolated events. This module will take the student through numerous real-world examples of innumeracy from stock scams, risk of terrorism, engineering risks, diet and medical claims, sports records, elections, sex discrimination, drug testing, insurance, law, psychoanalysis, lotteries, risk assessment, governmental budgets, pseudoscience and medical quackery. Areas covered will include: a. Overcoming Math Anxiety b. Numbers, Large and Small c. Percentages d. Estimations e. Probabilities f. Numerical Comparisons g. Correlation and Coincidence h. Statistics i. Polling EFTA_R1_00488870 EFTA01994763