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Went to see The Real Thing by Stoppard last night and it was fantastic. Very very slick. The sets were 2 sliding platforms - one separated and went out to either side and one slid out from the back and the transitions between the scenes on these were great - sometimes the 2 people would actually be physically separated by the scene change which was used very well. The play was great - very sharp. Both funny and witty and intelligent. I guess it was what romantic comedy should be like. Some of it was quite serious and I found myself agreeing with different characters at different times in the play about their views on love. Some of it reminded me of discussions Alex and I have had as discussions rather than arguments (Henry being a man who displays no jealousy). Maybe thats why we seem to do so well - we're able to go over that kind of stuff without it turning into a row or a point-scoring match. We went for a couple of drinks afterwards to discuss the play and all in all, it was a great evening out. I'd love to go to the theatre more often - its another one of those things, like cinema, where I never get round to actually organising it myself but if someone else does then I love to go. I need a bit more motivation. I'll have to start getting programmes delivered and then at least I'll have more advanced warning of any interesting stuff.
Somehow or other last night we got onto the subject of logic again (Only with a couple of mathematicians could a conversation begin "I've been hearing a lot of bad statistical inference lately"!). It really bugs me that most people get no kind of training in logical thinking at all and yet it doesn't take very much training at all to become aware of the slips people are making every day. What would really help I think is to slip it into the 8 year old maths curriculum at the very basic level (e.g. All mammals have fur, my cat is a mammal therefore my cat has fur) just to give them some kind of idea of how it works and then maybe another dose of slightly more advanced stuff at GCSE. I think it would make a huge difference to things like politics in this country if most of the people listening knew how to reason. We might even be able to reduce the amount of times politicians say things like "x->y. y is true. Therefore x." and "statistic a is correlated with statistic b. Therefore a->b".
Finally I've thought of an example!
"Most heroin users were previously cannabis users. Therefore cannabis use leads to heroin use."
NO! heroin use -> cannabis use is NOT THE SAME as
cannabis use -> heroin use! The statistic says nothing about the number of cannabis users who have never taken heroin. I expect that most heroin users also drink water but no-one is suggesting that H20 is a gateway drug - for obvious reasons.
Somehow or other last night we got onto the subject of logic again (Only with a couple of mathematicians could a conversation begin "I've been hearing a lot of bad statistical inference lately"!). It really bugs me that most people get no kind of training in logical thinking at all and yet it doesn't take very much training at all to become aware of the slips people are making every day. What would really help I think is to slip it into the 8 year old maths curriculum at the very basic level (e.g. All mammals have fur, my cat is a mammal therefore my cat has fur) just to give them some kind of idea of how it works and then maybe another dose of slightly more advanced stuff at GCSE. I think it would make a huge difference to things like politics in this country if most of the people listening knew how to reason. We might even be able to reduce the amount of times politicians say things like "x->y. y is true. Therefore x." and "statistic a is correlated with statistic b. Therefore a->b".
Finally I've thought of an example!
"Most heroin users were previously cannabis users. Therefore cannabis use leads to heroin use."
NO! heroin use -> cannabis use is NOT THE SAME as
cannabis use -> heroin use! The statistic says nothing about the number of cannabis users who have never taken heroin. I expect that most heroin users also drink water but no-one is suggesting that H20 is a gateway drug - for obvious reasons.
