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No.
Calculus exposes one to the ideas of trends, maxima, minima, limits, etc. All important concepts in data science.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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agree. data scientist must have a good mathematics toolbox
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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I never learned calculus. I had a semester of pre-calculus in college, but it was primarily trigonometry and I only remember that I took it. I also had a semester of statistics, which has been more useful.
Discrete math and Finite math were also required for CS majors.
But I wouldn't call myself a data scientist either. I like working with data and doing some light data analysis, but others are surely better at the heavy stuff than I.
Even if I had learned calculus forty years ago, I wouldn't remember it now unless I had been using it all that time, so it wouldn't help very much, I'd have to re-learn it.
"A man's got to know his limitations." -- Harry Callahan
P.S. Most high school graduates do not need calculus. Or trigonometry. Or Algebra 2. Or geometry.
When I graduated high school I had not yet decided to go into software development.
modified 9-Nov-23 12:41pm.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: P.S. Most high school graduates do not need calculus. Or trigonometry. Or Algebra 2. Or geometry.
But then one can suppose why high school at all?
For example I doubt I really need to know what a verb is. Certainly don't need to figure that out for work.
I also don't need to know about the Russian revolution.
I don't need to know about Freud. (Not convinced anyone should know about some of that nonsense.)
I don't need to simulate erosion in a stream bed.
I certainly don't need to know about running around a field collecting bugs with a net.
Do I really need to know and be tested on the battles of the civil war?
How many hours should I spend being taught the structure of the US government?
Did I really need to know how to create a blueprint on a drafting table?
Did I really need to dissect a frog?
Did I really need to figure out the impact of solids on freezing water?
Then there is the problem of if I don't learn any of that what happens when I finally decide to be a programmer, historian, author, politician, doctor, electrician, biologist, etc? Do I then start learning the above? How do I even know what any of those occupations might even be if I didn't learn some of the basics involved in it?
So if I don't really need to know any of that I don't need to go to school as long as I did. So what do I spend my time doing instead? Crawling around in a loom at a factory to free up problems doesn't sound like much fun (which is what at least some young children were doing before mandatory schooling.)
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jschell wrote: one can suppose why high school at all
Yeah, I almost mentioned that. Most people don't need more than a sixth or eighth grade education.
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Quote: sixth or eighth grade education.
Like one Jethro Bodine, he wanted to be a brain surgeon or a 'double naught spy' or a movie producer with the 6th grade education!
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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But the question was "whether one needed calculus to be a data scientist?".
I agree with @PIEBALDconsult "P.S. Most high school graduates do not need calculus. Or trigonometry. Or Algebra 2. Or geometry.", with the exception of geometry since it is widely used in careers, trades, and personal calculations.
For your list, there are items to agree and disagree with. I'll just pick two, for example.
- "Don't need to know what a verb is" - Perhaps that is why I often have to waste my time proofreading software instructions and websites that engineers (both software and real engineers), have created to be unintelligible.
- "How many hours should I spend being taught the structure of the US government?". When we look at the state of ignorance of Americans today when it comes to understanding government, I'd say a lot more hours than are currently being taught. At least as many as would be needed to pass the citizenship test given to immigrants.
Several of your items deal with scientific methods, or at least should be taught from that point of view. Those were a prerequisite for statistics in college back in the day.
Of course, you are correct in your conclusion that, without some introduction into many different subjects in high school, how would you know what education to pursue?
I'll leave you with a story. A few years ago, I was riding to a meeting with an acquaintance who had a MS in math and a EdD. I mentioned that requiring algebra 2 was a waste of time for the majority of students. He replied that I, as a computer guy, should understand that algebra 2 teaches logic and reasoning. We happened to be passing by the courthouse, so I told him we should go in the building and give the attorneys and algebra test and see how they do on "logic and reasoning". He was like; "point taken, there are many ways to teach that".
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MikeCO10 wrote: Perhaps that is why I often have to waste my time proofreading software instruction
Being able to write is not the same as being able to parse a sentence into its parts.
And I suspect that most of the people you have a problem with in the above did in fact have years of 'english' classes and quite a bit of discussion about what a verb is.
MikeCO10 wrote: When we look at the state of ignorance of Americans today when it comes to understanding government
However not necessary to actually be a successful programmer.
MikeCO10 wrote: Several of your items deal with scientific methods, or at least should be taught from that point of view.
However in the US only about 16% of degrees are STEM.
MikeCO10 wrote: He was like; "point taken, there are many ways to teach that".
Like philosophy classes of which I took several which specifically taught logic and reasoning.
1. I remember one over-heard discussion where a liberal student who thought of themselves and being smart was having a significant difficulty understanding symbolic logic. (I suspect they could have parsed a sentence though.)
2. In another class a engineering student was having difficulty understand a philosophical concept. Took me years and more experience to realize some 'scientific' people just cannot understand the actual basics and conceptual basis for logic (and science for that matter.)
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Algebraic statistics formulae are available, not just for the Calculus. At my university they taught both.
There are no solutions, only trade-offs. - Thomas Sowell
A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)
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Maybe. Would learning to become proficient in a language like "R" actually teach the necessary subsets of Calculus used in the statistical packages available through the R libraries?
R (programming language) - Wikipedia[^]
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Not anymore than using a cake mix teaches someone how to bake a cake from scratch.
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PIEBALD is right. There's a difference between someone who knows what's going on under the hood and a script kiddie.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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I found that as the tick interval got smaller, and the corresponding frame rate got higher, all the computing seemed to get simpler. What can happen when you only move (at a rate of) a few pixels at a time?
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Universities would have to change their curriculum based on HS kids not having calc. I went to a small Catholic grade school which didn't get around to algebra by 8th grade. When I went to HS, I was behind a year in math, which means I never got to calc in HS. As a comp sci major at Penn State, I had to take three semesters of physics, starting first sememster. Well, Physics 101 required some calc. Fortunately I had a few friends who taught me enough calc to get by with a decent grade. If universities still expect a calc background leaving HS, this would be a disaster. Fast forward to today where my son is already taking calc as a junior in HS...
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PSU Steve wrote: As a comp sci major at Penn State...If universities still expect a calc background leaving HS
One would normally presume that to be successful in STEM university program that one should have at least already been excelling in that before.
But STEM is less that 20% of university degrees.
So attempting to require it all high school students both is not needed and is certain to cause problems for those that are not excelling in the pre-req math in the first place.
Might be better to discuss if universities should require all students to take some statistics rather than those that hypothetically require calculus now.
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swampwiz wrote: Statistics is the basis of Data Science
It is not clear to me how this statement is connected the posted link. I consider that term to be a specific type of profession/expertise. Certainly one is going to need a level of expertise in mathematics to specialize in Data Science.
But looking only at the article...
I doubt Calculus in any normal high school is on the standard curriculum path for most students.
So it is now and should remain for those that excel in that which came before.
In high school statistics should already be introduced in various science classes. And those and least some of them should already be on a standard curriculum path.
Not sure that I think that high school students should have a full class on just statistics.
Also not clear to me that a class just for programming for the standard curriculum is a good idea either.
I also question the implied assertion in the article that all students at a university will be required to take calculus. Googling (briefly) does not suggest that.
modified 9-Nov-23 13:46pm.
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I apply "data science" when the user says one thing, and the data and/or logs say another.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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A couple of things related to the referenced article:
1. the article is from 2014; world seems to be going the same even if high school curriculum didn't change in the last 10 years. Besides article was referring only to US and high-school curricula vary from place to place.
2. the author wants to introduce both statistics and computer science. As most of us, programming practitioners, would agree, there is no real "computer science"; just a bit of craftsmanship and flavor of the day buzzword(s) - structured, object-oriented, functional, agile, extreme, cloud, as-a-service, etc.
In the interest of full disclosure, I hold one of those "computer science" degrees. Uni taught me many things one of them being that computers are not (yet) a science.
One more example that maybe we shouldn't give much importance to journalists.
Mircea
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Mircea Neacsu wrote: computers are not (yet) a science.
Computer science is not programming. Computer science deals with algorithms, complexity, etc., and has a firm basis in mathematics. Programming, on the other hand...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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While I see your point, allow me to argue that the vast majority of graduates of "computer science" programs will not practice the Computer Science you are talking about. Also I don't see how Computer Science would be taught at high school level. Nor do I see why it should.
Mircea
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Mircea Neacsu wrote: the vast majority of graduates of "computer science" programs will not practice the Computer Science you are talking about
Agreed. However, a competent programmer will have been exposed to the product of computer science. He/she/it will know algorithms, have some idea of their complexity (time, memory, etc.), and have an idea of when they should be used.
Mircea Neacsu wrote: Also I don't see how Computer Science would be taught at high school level.
Schools could use it to replace Latin as a subject that requires logic and discipline but is totally useless in the modern world. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: Schools could use it to replace Latin
De gustibus non disputandum est 
Mircea
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: Computer science deals with algorithms, complexity, etc.
And the techniques used for creating computers. Time-sharing, data storage, etc.
Not so much applying computers to different domains.
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Define calculus.
I don't understand why double integrals are a required part of doing science.
Do I really need to know Euler projections to be able to reason about and collect data?
Or, how to formulate arguments for and against the calculation of an area, bounded by formula that contains i.
None of this has made me a better scientist.
Doing the legwork and chugging along until I gather enough high quality data, that's what made me a scientist.
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I think it's good to have some understanding of the maths which can be a tool in helping to show patterns in data - but in the end it still requires, or did require until the advent of AI, a human eye/brain/experience to be able to see patterns.
Maths is not my strong point and I used to work as a production analyst with medical data - I was able to spot trends in data that some of the more mathematically competent scientists were not able to spot because I knew how to plot the data in graphs and interpret the "story" the graph was telling.
Plotting data in graphs is something of a skill in itself as, depending on the choice of graph, trends can be exposed to the eye that even sometimes advanced statisticians cannot see in the raw figures.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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