How would you go about explaining why understanding math is important

I ask this in response to the multitude of "why will we ever need this?" that still gets asked in my college math classes on a weekly basis.

Because it exercises the brain and grows logical reasoning. It's functioning can also be applied to other academic areas (e.g. Wittgenstein).

Well if by average person, you mean someone who isn't in a job that uses math, then yeah, it's not.

Parts which are applicable to real life should be familiar to everybody.

Other than that, maths is useful only for further developing your logical thinking.

File: africanvillage.jpg (296KB, 1600x1090px) Image search: [Google]

296KB, 1600x1090px

Our cities would look like this.

>>7788618
I'd like to explain how math correlates to the physical world, but I can't put a certain set of words together to describe it.

>>7788642
Don't worry anon, you're doing science, not poetry.

Mathematicians don't know all math, so it's OK if the average person stops at arithmetic.

As long as they don't plan on using any more advanced math in the future, it's completely OK to not understand it.

The next time some math fag blindly advocates the importance of everyone knowing "math" like it's a finished project, just ask them why they haven't found the time to study [insert latest crackpot mathematics theory here]

>>7788645
Language isn't poetry.

There's always a 100% chance of successfully expressing an idea to a completely different human being using a certain set of words in a particular sequence, you just have to know the particular sequence and the other persons ability to "decode" the sequence.

>>7788678
>Language isn't poetry

Oh wow, and all these years I thought I was writing and reciting songs, every time I spoke or wrote.

>>7788618
It's not really though.

>>7788710
Oh wow.