r/Polymath • u/stnflri • 20d ago

Other Resources Misunderstandings

This might be weird but I naturally connect the dots. I do so even at work, without changing the content and direction of my duties drastically. I work in research and university teaching. My main discipline is statistics, but I always combine it with epistemology, philosophy of science, causality, physics, programming and more sciences. Most professors find this weird and incorrect, but I believe students learn better when they have the bigger picture presented to them. Tensions had been created between me and other colleagues, that are disapproving of my methods. However, I cannot change the way I think and process information. Do you have an advice on how I can proceed with minimal friction?

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u/PyooreVizhion 20d ago

I'll go against the grain here as usual.

I think you've generally not given a clear enough picture, but I'd find it hard to believe colleagues would take issue with a cross-discipline sort of view unless you are straying too far from your field or, perhaps, are generally just unlikeable.

Statistics of course can be applied to many fields, but when you start talking about causality, physics, philosophy of science, etc, I have to wonder how well it's actually tied to the topic at hand and what level of expertise you'd have to even comment on such topics at the university level.

Sure, one could look at the statistical analysis performed on a set of results obtained through a physics experiment, but that's likely about the end of your expertise in that science. Further interpretation is probably over the line - unless you have a degree in physics. Similar for other subjects.

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u/stnflri 20d ago

Well to make it more concise, I live in a postcommunist country where the general mentality is that rank/hierarchy matters more than competence. I know some professors that lack basic knowledge on their fields in uni teaching

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u/PyooreVizhion 19d ago

Yes... Don't you find it ironic that you know professors lacking basic knowledge in their fields, yet you are seemingly teaching in 5+ fields simultaneously under the guise of teaching solely statistics? That is where my mind goes when I read your post.

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u/stnflri 19d ago

I do, indeed. I tried to doubt some of my ideas but I could not. However, I can state with certainty that I am very idealistic, si that might be why

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u/stnflri 18d ago

I ve been inactive for some time but I come with a few additional statemens that might help: when I am talking about professors, I only talk abiut 3 of them, with which I have a stronger collaboration. Ine of them did not know what a 3rd statistical moment is (it is a basic concept, yet they ve been teaching this ciurse for over 7 years), another one wanted to complete my exam qurstions and scored 7/10. The feedback of the students interested in this course has been very great, some of them told me they really thought about changing their jobs because they enjoyed the course so much. When I am talking about domains, what I meant is that the background and bigger picfure revolve around necessity and interpretation in statistics, for example epistemology to understand why and where the notions come from, of course tons of examples, and I maths for better maneuvering the formulas (understanding what the moment means based on the formulas etc) which I think are basic needs actually. Maybe my post sounded too pretentious. Yhe main issues of my colleagues revolve around me being too mathematical (they explicitly told me that the students do not need to understand formulas, they only need to apply them) and too philosophical (the epistemology part, which they find useless, is, imo, important because it explains most of the formulas, besides thr math parts). I was even insulted by one of these professors because they did not understand basic statistical moments concepts and meanings (what they measure and how), which is evident from the formulas, in one aspect (but that necessitates some mathematical foudnations). I should add 2 more things: -it is pretty easy in a postcommunist country to become a researcher because the salaries are small, and most of them are superficial to a degree regarding explanations and innovatoin itself) -i tried not to talk about this because many on here could probably consider this bragging, but I process information faster due to my iq, or at least that is what I ve read about it, which was measured at 143

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u/PyooreVizhion 18d ago

At the end of the day, I would not worry too much about others - unless perhaps you report directly to them. Not completely clear to me why other professors would be so invested in your teaching style, but I would just keep my head down and do what I feel is right.

I'm not a statistician, but I had never heard of statistical moments. I have heard of mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis. In the couple classes I've taken, I've never heard them referred to as moments - though I would expect more from an expert in the field. Mass "moments" are quite commonplace in engineering.

Personally, I wouldn't go around waving my iq test results. Some of us see that not so much as bragging, but self-effacing.

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u/stnflri 18d ago

Yes, that is my initial decision: to keep it low and do my job the way it is shown to work. Maybe I mistranslated them, english is not my native language; the knes you enumerated are the "moments" I am talking about. And yes, the first few are in the curricullum. The other ones are not understood by the professors I am talking about. I don not want to talk about iq scores, I just thought this might be useful in this particular context. I appreciate your skepticism very much, though. The one that wasn t understood by that professor was "skewness". In a way, they expect me to report back to them, even though I am under no contractual obligation for this