Since I flog the book Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do incessantly, I thought I should point to the companion weblog. Why do I bring this book up so much? Well, I think the posts will tell you why. For example, look at this map which shows where the rich voted more than 50% Kerry. Or this post which illustrates the fact that religion polarizes the elite much more than the lower classes. Of course, Andrew Gelman is not a god, but the quantitative and relatively explicit methods he uses means that critiques, extensions or refutations are much easier to produce and follow for interested lay persons than when it comes to the arguments of more qualitative thinkers.
This does not mean that qualitative thinkers are wrong of course, but, it is difficult to evaluate their claims quite often because one does not have the dense implicit data set with which one can use to cross-reference their assertions. Samantha Power and Fareed Zakaria can have a very fruitful discussion, but an outside observer without their backgrounds might have a hard time making any informed assessment of which side they feel is generating a more accurate model of reality. Rather, I think most people will likely just go with their "gut" strongly informed by their normative preferences.*
Addendum: Since many readers have a biological background, a quick analogy might make what I'm trying to say clear: compare Systematics to the way it was before and after the rise of Cladistics. I was once told by a phylogeneticist that the greatness of the new method was that it dispensed with a great deal of "Because I said so!" arguments. And yet friends who have worked in phylogenetics have also complained that hardcore Cladists are often excessively dismissive of any other methodology. Similarly, I think qualitative thinkers still have a role to play as a complement to the quantitative ones in the human sciences (verbal arguments often precede formal ones).
* This is not to say that that can't happen with quantitative models, it does all the time. But the clarity and precision of the initial arguments mean that differences are more pointed and transparent.
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Samantha Power and Fareed Zakaria can have a very fruitful discussion, but an outside observer without their backgrounds might have a hard time making any informed assessment of which side they feel is generating a more accurate model of reality.
A cynic would say that that's the purpose of verbal/qualitative purists -- not to understand reality, which requires at least the desire to count (and the effort if it's possible), but to use charisma to build a cult of disciples and thus live a comfortable life without having to produce anything.
A cynic would say that that's the purpose of verbal/qualitative purists -- not to understand reality, which requires at least the desire to count (and the effort if it's possible), but to use charisma to build a cult of disciples and thus live a comfortable life without having to produce anything.
ideal collaboration is a qual rapidly explores idea space with intuition. when there's something that the qual perceives to be plausible then the quant should allocate their time & effort toward seeing if there can be a testable model produced. my own personal experience is that genuine qual insight in many of these fields is rather popperian; you can dismiss or refute rapidly, but it is harder to make positive claims. in an ideal world quals would allow for the more efficient allocation of quant labor input.
not an ideal world ;-) i don't know as much as someone with a phd in history, but i know enough random facts that i've seen many quals obviously bullshitting in a way that it is highly likely they know they're bullshitting, but they know that most of their audience is dumb and credulous enough to go along with them (of course, many "quals" just don't know much, but it is the nature of a qual that the public has a hard time evaluating).
And yet friends who have worked in phylogenetics have also complained that hardcore Cladists are often excessively dismissive of any other methodology.
What other scientific methodologies are there? Cladistic analysis certainly has its shortcomings, but there aren't any alternatives for most taxa, other than gut instinct.
i think my friend was alluding to phenetic techniques. she was interested in various morphological adaptations to some extent across lineages and she ignored the phylogenetic relationships for a moment in a talk. that got her a dressing down from a cladist who accused her of being "insufficiently popperian." same thing happened to her labmate. granted, she is primarily a cladist.