I don’t see how it’s possible for mdda or you to have quantitative evidence either way. I doubt that there are any surveys or studies that include questions on all of the following: whether people can compute angular velocity, whether they know how to have sex, whether their life is a success.
I’m guessing mdda arrived at eir conclusion that understanding sex is more important than understanding how to compute angular velocity by reasoning that far more people have sex (as evidenced by children) than get jobs necessitating angular velocity calculations.
I’m not sure how useful understanding the equations for angular velocity in daily life really is, because I don’t know those equations myself. I can say, though, that I feel like I intuitively understand angular velocity well enough and that knowing the equations wouldn’t help my life much. And I would guess (based on personal experience and observation) that people have sex more often than they have to deal with something spinning around quickly.
Putting the Sex Ed classes into a broad category of 'improving people's mental health' may give quantifiable estimates of benefit[1]. The monetary benefits of regular education (most directly measurable at the university level [2]) are an order of magnitude less valuable (on a happiness-per-dollar basis).
Normally, I'm not really a fan of the 'soft' subjects (compared to the hard sciences). But giving people at least a minimum level of knowledge about something as basic to life as sex (or understanding depression, for instance) should (IMHO) be a priority.
Comments
> the value of people understanding the former is minuscule in comparison.
Do you have any quantitative evidence whatsoever to support such a claim?
I don’t see how it’s possible for mdda or you to have quantitative evidence either way. I doubt that there are any surveys or studies that include questions on all of the following: whether people can compute angular velocity, whether they know how to have sex, whether their life is a success.
I’m guessing mdda arrived at eir conclusion that understanding sex is more important than understanding how to compute angular velocity by reasoning that far more people have sex (as evidenced by children) than get jobs necessitating angular velocity calculations.
I’m not sure how useful understanding the equations for angular velocity in daily life really is, because I don’t know those equations myself. I can say, though, that I feel like I intuitively understand angular velocity well enough and that knowing the equations wouldn’t help my life much. And I would guess (based on personal experience and observation) that people have sex more often than they have to deal with something spinning around quickly.
Putting the Sex Ed classes into a broad category of 'improving people's mental health' may give quantifiable estimates of benefit[1]. The monetary benefits of regular education (most directly measurable at the university level [2]) are an order of magnitude less valuable (on a happiness-per-dollar basis).
Normally, I'm not really a fan of the 'soft' subjects (compared to the hard sciences). But giving people at least a minimum level of knowledge about something as basic to life as sex (or understanding depression, for instance) should (IMHO) be a priority.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics#cite_ref-13 [2] http://blogs.reuters.com/reuters-money/2011/06/06/is-college...