I think this is very much a disconnect between soft and hard sciences as well as semantics what we mean by "thinking". In maths you can define problems that require logic (and thats what the hard sciences mean by thinking) with unique solutions that you can test and thereby also train idependently.
You're downplaying the importance of written communication in STEM education ... and yet you, a "hard scientist" are having an extended argument about STEM training in writing ... Were you born knowing how to do that? Or did you learn it?
Interestingly, papers, which are the "hard currency" of science, even papers about machine learning that contain many maths, even your own papers, are, in fact, made *mostly* of words. Words that build arguments to communicate ideas in writing. Which is a skill even math students need to learn.
After having spent some time in the world of biology, I have to say that most maths/ml papers are pretty awful in terms of their english language. But that's fine for the field because everything is in the equations.
And anyway, this discussion originated with undergrads writing essays. Most STEM grads won't become mathematicians. Everyone will have to, at some point in their jobs, use writing to convince people to hire them/keep paying them/do what they want/buy something they're selling (product or idea).
More convinced of writing but still not on board with ubiquity of essay/paper writing. Very asymmetric communication and easily biased/masked by language. And I don't want to outsource the decision-finding on whom to employ to the applicant.
The form should follow the type of communication needed. I hear LLMs are not very good at mimicking mathematics notation because predicting the next mark requires logic that is either correct or incorrect, not 'probably correct because that's what's in the training data'.
Writing prose is also like that, but it has a larger range of choices of the next word. By outsourcing it to probabilistic automation, there is regression to the mean bulit into the writing process, ie, the writing is inherently average.
That might do the job, but it won't be good - one might convey one's thoughts more frugally or with more colour, helping the reader. And one won't have had the process of self-criticism that happens through considering options for the operative words, and choosing one.
Ah interesting points, wasn‘t aware about the bit with math formulas. As a probably below average writer l’m okay with average writing. It‘s also worthwhile to read up on the connection between essays and class/socioeconomic background and consider implications for inclusivity.
Yes absolutely. Literacy isn't everything, and it's more important in some fields/jobs than others, but it's a core skill that almost all occupations need, especially in an advanced economy. So is numeracy, and it's a big failure of the British education system that you can stop at 16
Agree 😆 But that strengthens my case. How are you going to have high impact if your work is siloed and only accessible to a small audience? You want to be able to explain to a biologist what your fun math paper is about or the biologist won't care. Working cross-disciplines makes good comms key.
I’m not disagreeing with you, my point is that both models are suited to their respective fields, and there’s value in each learning from the other. What I often see in biology, though, is that ideas are communicated with a lot of flair but little underlying logic ;)
In the soft sciences, and biology hard and soft components, thinking is more fuzzy and cannot be assessed and or trained in the same way and doesn't just rely on logic but has other components.