17 Aug 2012
Humanities aren’t a science. Stop treating them like one.

In short, stop trying to quantify the unquantifiable. Sound advice for any endeavor.

Every softer discipline these days seems to feel inadequate unless it becomes harder, more quantifiable, more scientific, more precise. That, it seems, would confer some sort of missing legitimacy in our computerized, digitized, number-happy world. But does it really? Or is it actually undermining the very heart of each discipline that falls into the trap of data, numbers, statistics, and charts? Because here’s the truth: most of these disciplines aren’t quantifiable, scientific, or precise. They are messy and complicated. And when you try to straighten out the tangle, you may find that you lose far more than you gain.

(link) [Scientific American]

11:23 /Technology | 2 comments | permanent link