How history of mathematics can help to face a crisis situation: the case of the polemic between Bernoulli and d’Alembert about the smallpox epidemic

Abstract

In this article, I present the eighteenth century’s polemic of Bernoulli and d’Alembert concerning the smallpox epidemic and a prevention method called inoculation. Through an analysis of the polemic and the related resources, I show that this historical debate has various interests for mathematics education; and more specifically it can help teachers to confront dilemmas emerging with the COVID-19 pandemic (for example if a teacher should talk about it in class or not, how to help students to interpret the statistical data and the mathematical models connected to the pandemic and more generally, how to deal with the confusions and concerns emerging in connection to the pandemic). I describe the documents related to the historical polemic as transitional objects, having a potential to reveal the teachers’ own professional or personal experiences, reflections and questions, and to stimulate dialogue with them on these issues. I illustrate this proposition by the presentation of an online reading seminar realized with a French group of teachers in April 2020.

Will we ever teach mathematics again in the way we used to before the pandemic?

“…We consider that the educational experiences that we had during the pandemic can serve as catalysts for teachers to experiment with new ideas, explore creative alternatives and reflect on their own practices (McKenney et al, 2015 ; Rapanta et al, 2020 ). Studies included reports about mathematics teachers who experienced the pandemic as a prompt to re-examine their teaching (Albano et al, 2021 ; Gosztonyi, 2021 ; Maciejewski, 2021 ). We as academics in mathematics education must be part of the process of reflection and planning, and universities, now more than ever, should invest in professional development of university and school teachers, for the purpose of helping them to be updated on effective pedagogical methods with or without the use of online technologies (Rapanta et al, 2020 ).…”

Statistical Ethics in Medical Research: A Narrative Review

“…Concurrently, James Lind's pioneering 1753 scurvy treatment experiment established essential foundations for controlled trials by incorporating randomization and accounting for confounders [3,4]. Later contributions came from mathematicians like Daniel Bernoulli, who applied statistical thinking to inoculation against smallpox and Pierre-Simon Laplace, renowned for developing early Bayesian inference in his 1814 seminal work, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities [5,6]. These innovations demonstrated the growing power of statistics to produce actionable medical insights.…”