I have had thoughts about the sort of people who hate math (versus those who hate English class) and qualitative versus quantitative thinking running around in my head again lately.

I think it would be fair to say that there are qualitative people and quantitative people. Nobody can be completely one or the other, but there are people who are only comfortable with one or the other, and will always consider the other one to be alien and unreliable and unpleasant.

A qualitative person is most comfortable with thinking in terms of ideas and emotions rather than numbers and facts. They compare and contrast in order to get answers. They are comfortable with ambiguity, and in fact prefer it in some situations. They tend not to believe in Truth and they place a high value on relationships between things rather than the things themselves. The world of data and numbers and calculation seems very cold and unnatural to them, and liable to mislead people into making the morally wrong choices simply because the numbers told them to do it, or worse, be used to justify people being rotten to one another.

Quantitative people, by contrast, are quite happy in the world of numbers and data and calculation. It is ambiguity they dislike. They want to be able to find an answer, and anything which does not lead to a mathematically demonstrable answer is viewed as highly suspect. They believe in Truth and think there is an answer to all questions, no matter how seemingly qualitative, can be answered with sufficient data and the right questions. They are not interested in the vaguely defined world of relationships and instead seek answers via applying logical tools to analyze data, eliminate meaningless variables, and derive the answer in a quantitative form. They think that it is the qualitative world that leads people astray by giving immorality the space to hide in its ambiguity, and letting people go on thinking demonstrably wrong things by giving them an excuse to ignore the data and, indeed, reality itself.

Of course, I am somewhere in the middle. I am quantitatively biased, I will admit. If it can be solved through logical, number based analysis, it should be. But I know that a purely mathematical view of the world is limited in many ways. It is very easy for people to get lost in a forest of numbers, fall in love with a beautiful equation, and entirely lose track of what they were trying to do in the first place. Statistical analysis is a cruel and deceptive mistress, and it takes a very special kind of mind to avoid her illusions. A mind that is quite able to step back from the numbers and deal with things qualitative as well as quantitative, and thus avoid the problems of both.

For me, a great example of this is Freud. Yes, Freud got a lot of things wrong and he’s all “debunked” now, but his main contribution to psychology was not his theories, it was the very idea of the mind itself.

In Freud’s era, it was the empiricists who were dominant and to them, his theories, and the very idea that you can heal someone just my talking to them, were roundly ridiculed as superstitious nonsense by hard science bigwigs of his era.

What, was there something magical that passed through the air from the therapists lips into the brain of the patient? Everything had a physical cause, everybody knew that. All this nonsense about talk therapy was just a bunch of religious superstition wrapped up in scientific terms. And just where was this “subconscious mind” Freud was on about? None of it could be verified empirically, and so it’s all a lot of nonsense and we should stick to what we can prove.

Freud replied to his critics that the “proof” of his ideas was in his reasoning. You either examined his ideas and found them sound or found them wanting. Otherwise, the help he gave to others in making them happier was all the proof he needed.

Talk about quantitative versus qualitative! Personally, I think limiting yourself to one or the other is ridiculous. I am a passionate pragmatist and that means I use whatever tool works, regardless of its provenance. To me, it is cheap and weak and quite pathetic to pretend that the half of the issue that you don’t like is somehow flawed and suspect and that therefore you can feel free to ignore it and concentrate on the side that comes naturally to you.

I am quite comfortable with both sides. I am driven to find answers and solutions, and I will use whatever tool produces effective and reliable results.

Because I am all about the results, baby. That’s what pragmatism is all about. Whatever WORKS.

So I have equal contempt for the people who ignore evidence as I do for those who ignore relationships. Some questions have no quantitative answer, others no qualitative. They are not that kind of question, and to pretend that science and knowledge must limit itself to that which can be counted is just as bad as pretending that all questions are unanswerable and the numbers and data do not count.

There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you are good at and what you are not. That is fine. There is no royal road to becoming equally good at both. Nobody gets to be good at everything.

But to pretend that the things you aren’t good at are somehow inferior to the ones you are good at is the worst kind of provincial, small minded “sour grapes” thinking.

The proper response, if presented with a question from your non-dominant side is “I’m sorry, I don’t know, someone else will have to come up with that answer. ”

It is NOT “What a stupid question. I shouldn’t have to answer that kind of question. Besides, that stuff’s all stupid anyhow!”

Grow up, and take a look at the full picture.

That’s it from me for today, folks. Talk to you tomorrow!

Either assumption