RE: Academic Wank and the conservative backlash

I have to partially disagree. Yes, the formula “F = m a” has no inherent meaning, yet the symbols it contains influence your thought processes. For instance, as you are quite well aware, the symbol “F” in this case is force, but if you go to similar area that uses “F” there is some cognitive dissonance associated with changing how you think about it. Admittedly, this goes away to a large extent with training, but I ran into something earlier this week where my labeling of a group representation caused me to attribute properties to it that did not exist. While a symbol in mathematics is merely a placeholder/label, we have to take care in how we label things to ensure self-consistency so we don’t introduce errors from mistaking what a symbol represents. (Incidentally, this bit my adviser in the ass last week, so I guess I was due.)

Don’t get me wrong, I think you are correct in your assertion that the line between an object and its symbol can, and does, become blurred in most people’s minds, and that this does cause serious issues. But, mathematics is not immune to it.