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This article is good, but not great - the author only gives one example of how quantitative-only reasoning can be bad (the example of the poppies). The other "e

This article is good, but not great - the author only gives one example of how quantitative-only reasoning can be bad (the example of the poppies). The other "example" is just the US military lying. There are also no specific examples of non-quantitative reasoning that, if ignored, would be damaging. I feel like the Wikipedia article does a better job explaining this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy Also, why is there an entire webpage dedicated to this?

enkid 5y ago
The example with the US military lying certainly demonstrates another issue with over valuing metrics - making sure you have good data. People who get wrapped around metrics also tend to not look at the data they are being presented. One of the issues McNamara had was he was receiving inflated body count figures. [0] Not only was he measuring the wrong thing, he was measuring it badly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_body_count_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_body_count_controv...
- the_af 5y ago
  It's also a good example of perverse incentives or "gaming the metrics" (in a horrifying way). If the main measure of success was body count, and every kill was considered an enemy by default, this encouraged just killing people and counting them as successes.
  - shellback3 5y ago
    I was in Vietnam in a Naval Support Group. I had conversations with army officers that had combat experience and learned that since no statistics were collected about dead civilians all the dead were counted as enemy soldiers - and everyone from the top down knew it.
hummusandsushi 5y ago
The webpage appears to be made to serve as a warning to data-driven businesses to not fall into the same perverse set of incentives that McNamara created, to encourage business managers to diversify their accounts of the success of their business beyond just the quantitative narrative.
- pakitan 5y ago
  I'd be more cynical and suspect this is some kind of elaborate SEO strategy. Submit the site to social networks -> wait till gets some love from the Google algorithm -> put ads on it -> profit.
  - hummusandsushi 5y ago
    Possible, but this seems of rather a niche interest for a successful SEO strategy. I could grant that it would then be targeted specifically at the HN sort of social networks.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    Why not just start with ads?

enkid 5y ago

The example with the US military lying certainly demonstrates another issue with over valuing metrics - making sure you have good data. People who get wrapped around metrics also tend to not look at the data they are being presented. One of the issues McNamara had was he was receiving inflated body count figures. [0] Not only was he measuring the wrong thing, he was measuring it badly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_body_count_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_body_count_controv...

the_af 5y ago
It's also a good example of perverse incentives or "gaming the metrics" (in a horrifying way). If the main measure of success was body count, and every kill was considered an enemy by default, this encouraged just killing people and counting them as successes.
- shellback3 5y ago
  I was in Vietnam in a Naval Support Group. I had conversations with army officers that had combat experience and learned that since no statistics were collected about dead civilians all the dead were counted as enemy soldiers - and everyone from the top down knew it.

hummusandsushi 5y ago

The webpage appears to be made to serve as a warning to data-driven businesses to not fall into the same perverse set of incentives that McNamara created, to encourage business managers to diversify their accounts of the success of their business beyond just the quantitative narrative.

pakitan 5y ago
I'd be more cynical and suspect this is some kind of elaborate SEO strategy. Submit the site to social networks -> wait till gets some love from the Google algorithm -> put ads on it -> profit.
- hummusandsushi 5y ago
  Possible, but this seems of rather a niche interest for a successful SEO strategy. I could grant that it would then be targeted specifically at the HN sort of social networks.
- mulmen 5y ago
  Why not just start with ads?