Conservapedia talk:Conservapedian mathematics

Constructivism, or why the controversy about proof by contradiction is actually real
The general idea is that objects whose existence has been proved by proof by contradiction cannot be exhibited, and thus such a way of constructing them is rejected by constructivist school of thoughts. In fact, constructivist maths, which focus on defining and constructing objects, can go as far as rejecting the axiom of excluded middle (in particular due to infinite sets). Constructivists are a minority among mathematicians, but they include many well respected mathematicians like Markov* or Bishop, and contributions made by constructivist mathematics are notable in a number of domains (in particular fundamental math, algebra, topology, logic and computer science). See also finitism or intuitionism (Brouwer, Godel, Kolmogorov, ...).

So all in all I cannot say if conservapedia understands what they are talking about, but the "controversy" definitely exists and the article should reflect that. To give an analogy, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics is accepted by most physicists, but is still very controversial. For most people and in particular students it does not matter, and the differences are mostly a matter of philosophy, but it doesn't make the defender of other approaches (many world, pilot waves**, ...) wrong just because of it.

(*Andrei Markov jr, not to be confused with his father (who gave his name to markov processes) or his uncle)

(**An interpretation that is surprisingly unknown by the general public and even physics students, considering it was championed amongst others by De Broglie, Bohm and Bell)

Conservpedia space
probably not the best for cover articles. We already have Andy Schlafly and conservapedia as cover articles. Godot   Grow a vagina 19:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Not a cover story. 19:50, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Axe wielding time
This article is striking me as badly written and way too wordy. Gonna wield the axe a bit - David Gerard (talk) 14:39, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

what
I changed a d to an a in one word and apparently my edit has copy and pasted a whole chunk of other stuff. But I never highlighted anything, never copied anything and never pasted anything. Then a following "undo" action only removed some but not all of the previous change. What have I done?

Also how have I done it because if I could do whatever it was on purpose it might actually be pretty useful. I am now about to have one last try at undoing it all, then someone else can do it. Fonzie (talk) 20:54, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Never mind, done. Fonzie (talk) 20:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Six fucking edits. Look at the net change achieved with six edits. Fonzie (talk) 21:20, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Worry ye not - we've all been there. Scream!! (talk) 21:57, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It has happened before and it seems that the best way to avoid it is not to use the preview or show changes, but that seems irresponsible. I'll try it with a different browser or different settings next time. Fonzie (talk) 11:58, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Twin prime conjecture
Quote:


 * In apparent preparation for this class, Andy did ask his brother Roger (who is also a conservative fundamentalist, but has a Ph.D. in mathematics) whether he had a proof of the Twin Primes Conjecture. Roger replied, quite sensibly, that he believes it is true, but has no proof.

Andy did not ask whether he had a proof, but whether he thought it is true and whether he thought it is provable “(though obviously not proven yet)” (!). -- Ivan (talk) 20:33, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Communist maths and others demons
I could not contain the laughter with the part of the "Vietnamese communist mathematician". I wonder what Schlafly and friends would think if they find out that the Fields Medal has been given to Soviet and Chinese mathematicians.