Preface Preface
Welcome to Quantitative Reasoning. The goal of this course is to teach you how to use and understand numbers (quantitative) to understand the world and think for yourself (reasoning). However, this book is also written from a Christian perspective, and we find in scripture the most commmonly used word for learning to understand and live according to God's created order is wisdom. This course will strongly resemble Quantitative Reasoning courses found in secular colleges and universities, but ocassionally our Christian perspective will break through in ways different from or contrary to a secular perspecive.
This is a math course designed for students who are majoring in fields that do not directly require a lot of mathematics. Dr. Eric Gaze at Bowdoin College summarizes Quantitative Reasoning as “doing complicated reasoning using elementary mathematics.” Most of the topics are intended to help you better understand adult life, be a better citizen, and better understand ethical questions with numerical components.
One of the most important things you need to succeed in this class is patience and determination. As Keith Plummer, a professor of apologetics, theology, and counseling at Cairn University once said, “The speed with which we're able to communicate can tempt us to view precision and those who value it with impatient disdain.” Although we will sometimes work only in terms of estimation, a great deal of this course will be spent patiently and diligently figuring out answers that might surprise us. As you work hard in this class I hope that you improve in the Biblical virtues of patience, understanding 2 , discipline, and diligence. 3