Customer Reviews

The Math Instinct: Why You're a Mathematical Genius (Along with Lobsters, Birds, Cats, and Dogs)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I must say, despite the three stars, I enjoyed this book. I found the various examples of animals 'doing' mathematics very interesting. Also interesting is the section on street math; the fact that poor children in Brazil preform relatively flawless mathematics in their produce stalls, yet fail the same problems on a formal test. However, I was looking forward to something Devlin alluded to in the introduction: a way we can teach math more effectively. However, after all these countless examples, his solution was presented briefly at the final chapter. Essentially, Devlin says that conceptual math, not rote math needs to be emphasized and real life examples should be utilized more. Honestly, I would rather this have been just a fun math book for non-math minded people than have such an obvious ending. With that said, if I could I would give this book 3.5 stars because it is such an interesting read.

Although the word "math" appears in the title, this book is mainly about instinct and psychology. About half the book contains discussions on how animals instinctively do certain things that have some foundation in math. The other half of the book looks at how humans perceive and behave in math-related situations - from infancy to adulthood. The book is very well-written, very clear and easy to read. Those who are math phobic have nothing to fear here; in fact, they would likely find this book very interesting in the sense that they would learn something fascinating about themselves. Other than for those who are math phobic, this book has something for psychology buffs as well as animal lovers. But most importantly, it should grace the shelves of math educators as well as those who are interested in the reasons and possible cures for innumeracy.

This book offers a very readable overview for the non-specialist, with many fascinating details on how animals use their kinds of natural mathematics. It also discusses the findings of Brazilian researchers on how teenage street vendors who can't handle school math develop their own effective street math techniques. The author makes abundantly clear that many people can't deal with school math because it is presented as an abstract symbolic system. People can learn best, he argues, by applying math in concrete ways. Unfortunately, he stops short at the end of the book and simply enjoins us to practice because that is the way humans gain mastery over subjects. It would have been useful for him to spell out how such practice can best be done and to give examples. I recall an awful pre-calculus course that spent a full year trying to prove a set of theorems, leaving us students with no knowledge of how to apply calculus to scientific, financial, or other problems (this was the last exposure to math for most of the class). We would have learned much better by applying calculus to real problems, then perhaps concluding the year with a bit of theory. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy popular science literature or want to know more about animal math.

I thought there would be a little more substance to this book. I was glad to see the stories and references to some of the street math but I was more intrigued by the examples of babies and math.

I would recommend it to friends that are not that interested in math.

For those that want more depth to the discussion relating math to instinct I'd go elsewhere.

"The Math Instinct" is something of a hodge-podge, and I think it could be written better, but there is lots of really interesting material, and the reader can always skip chapters not of interest to him/her. I say the book isn't written that well, because Devlin doesn't do well enough with the more difficult concepts. I say it is a hodge podge because subjects such as the nautilus's shell have nothing to do with the rest of the book; in fact Devlin waits far too long to distinguish between computational skills of animals, such as their navigational skills, and the results of optimization through evolutionary trial and error (bee's hexagonal honeycomb) which has nothing to do with the animal brain's capacity for doing math.
Amazingly, a numerical sense has been found to exist in baby's only a few days old, as well as in rats, etc. Brazilian children who could not master arithmetic in school, do great when they need to employ math in the marketplace. When math is abstract and rule based, without making sense, it is hard to learn or apply. It actually uses a part of the brain devoted to language rather than a part used for "natural" math (which incidentally grew out of the area used to control digits). Devlin addresses teaching math, but surprisingly doesn't have much too say, emphasizing repetitive practice rather than a change in presentation. For example, for reasons Devlin gives, learning 7 x 8 = 56 is particularly hard, so why not teach 7 x 8 = 7 x 7 + 7, thereby giving the idea of multiplication as a quick way to do some kinds of addition, and taking advantage of the kind of techniques untutored Brazilian working kids use in the marketplace?

This book was well written, meticulously researched, and thought provoking. The final chapters reaffirmed everything I learned about Constructivist math in my professional development as a teacher. Dr. Devlin leaves me wishing over and over again that I could go back to my childhood and learn math in a new way. The research he presented about young infants understanding the quantity of two was especially fascinating. As a mother, I am going to work harder to understand my children's innate mathematical ability, before it gets smothered by "education".

At times, even those who do the math are astounded at how well the universe can be described using mathematics. However, there is a causality question inherent in this. It is a simple one, namely "Does the mathematics humans create describe the universe as a consequence of the way the universe works or is the mathematics independent of the actions of the universe?" This is a deep philosophical question that is at the heart of much of human thought.
In this book, Devlin sometimes gets very close to dodging this real issue. The power of evolution is to survive, the creatures that respond in the best way to how the universe works are the ones that survive to propagate. As anyone that has engaged in iterative processes can attest, even a few percentage points of advantage leads to dominance after several generations. Therefore, when a creature reacts the way they do, they are not "doing the math", they are simply responding to the way the universe works, and the actions of the universe can be described by mathematics.
From this perspective, the title and much of the contents are incorrect, albeit interesting. There is no mathematical genius involved in what happens, it can all be explained as a dynamic feedback of repeated and often-deadly trial and error. All of the creatures that did it the wrong way have been punished by having their genetic line eliminated from the gene pool, so what we see now is the descendents of those that did it right. Even though it may be something I have seen before, it is always interesting to see how the appearance and actions of living things can be described using mathematics. So while I strongly disagree with the unrealistic premise inherent in the title, I still enjoyed reading the book.

Despite the intriguing title and nice printing paper, this book is very unsatisfying. It lacks substance. All it boils down to is the idea that animals can do math because they can do things that people would need math to figure out. Beyond that we just "learn" by repetition that that this is a result of evolution/natural selection. Some would say this is obvious, others "how do you know?", but either way it certainly is not insightful. So to get the 264 dull pages the author resorts to slow, verbose but shallow explanations of things most people know and a bunch of useless trivia. It is not worth your time or money.The Math Instinct: Why You're a Mathematical Genius (Along with Lobsters, Birds, Cats, and Dogs)

I was suckered by the description and this book fails to deliver....

The reason I gave two stars: some teenagers or true novices to the subject may find some of the stories interesting enough to turn them onto better works in the field.

There is NOTHING new in this book: Devlin desperately looks for a new angle to a Greek philosophical fight- which is not necessarily bad (see "the Anthropology of Art") BUT he doesn't take any new angle- he just searches and speculates - like a tired dog circling for a place to lie down.

The filler of the book is what anyone would expect- scientific research and 'interesting' tidbits about the physical world... once again, nothing new. Save your money.