Recently, I was looking at the Web site for Corridor H, a highway project in West Virginia, and learned that “statistical experience indicates the completed project could produce a reduction in the accident rate of nearly 150 percent.”

I used to work in advertising, and I can appreciate the occasional claim that, while superficially impressive, is utterly meaningless. But this was written by the State of West Virginia, presumably in some official report, before being posted on the Web.

Here’s yet another instance of the failure of our current educational “system” to teach Timmy to think. When Timmy gets to the workplace, it’s fairly trivial to teach him specialized skills for a particular job, but unfortunately, it’s way too late to begin trying to teach him how to think.

“Timmy, if I cut a pie in half, what percent of the pie is in each half?”

“50%.”

“Correct. Now if I take one of the halves away, what percent of the pie have I taken?”

“50%.”

“Correct. So I have reduced the amount of pie by 50%. Now, we’ll have a pop quiz. I’m going to give you a pie. You must reduce the amount of pie by 150%.”

“That’s impossible.”

“You passed the test.”

That doesn’t seem like such a difficult teaching exercise, and yet this sort of surreal mathematics of reduction pops up every day.

An outfit called C3M Digital Web Solutions has a product that they promise on their Web site will “Reduce Page Loading Time by 300%.” Would you buy software from any IT professional who thinks that makes sense?

Earlier this week, I saw a new commercial for Charmin: “Use Charmin, and Use 4 Times Less [than the leading value brand].” In the commercial, they go on to explain that instead of the 28 sheets of the other brand, you only need 7 sheets of Charmin. So let’s see, that’s 21 fewer sheets. So does that mean that 21 is 4 times 28?

Did someone believe that the nonsensical claim of “4 times less” would actually sell more toilet tissue than a compelling – and true – claim of “75% less”?

We’re not talking about some special math and science curriculum or creating magnet schools for Mensans. This is just basic logic – thinking! 

When did we stop demanding that in schools? Or in commercials?

New Math by Ed Ward is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.