How will the mathematics wars end?

Stalemate, compromise or outright victory

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To those of a certain sensibility, it will not have escaped your notice that the mathematics wars are flaring up again, at least in the U.S. And where the U.S. leads in education, the rest of the anglosphere tends to be dragged along, willingly or otherwise. This time, it centers around the establishment of a ‘Science of Math’ group on Twitter, Facebook and via a website.

The first thing to note is that that reading and mathematics are not quite the same, as a number of commentators such as Natalie Wexler have highlighted. Reading involves two intertwined components — turning squiggles on the page into words and then building a picture of what these words mean. Mathematical ability is closer to the first of these processes than the second. However, it is the first of these processes that has been the main subject of the reading wars so, as wars go, we may be able to learn something from them. And we may be able to predict how this war ends.