Well, understand that I did qualify that statement-- significantly. I stand by it, but for the physical sciences, and with the understanding that "principles" there means methodology and conceptual understanding. I'm repeating that statement again, since it keeps getting oversimplified. Pretty sure that anyone who has taken Physics recalls "Newton's Laws" have something to do with motion and macroscopic objects, yes? That's what I mean by "literacy" in this context.

I was also very bemused by the notion of "vectors/calculus" being the STEM track, and not "statistics" instead.

My DH and I have both used our stats backgrounds far, far more than any other area of math we've ever learned-- including calculus. Diff-Eq and matrix methods are more useful when you get right down to daily use. If you don't use it, you do lose a lot of the nuance of the mechanics, however. I think that isn't a big surprise. laugh

Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.