4 ms·

Humanities department generally / traditionally haven't believed in insights that come from mathematics.

keiferski 2y ago
Depends on what you mean by traditionally. This division is largely a consequence of the battle between scientific-technical education and classics/Latin-Greek education in the 19th century. Prior to that, there was definitely a ton of overlap between humanities and mathematics - consider Leibniz as a prime example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures
- passion__desire 2y ago
  Conside the "Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis" theory. It is nothing but Synthesis = λ × Antithesis + (1 - λ) × Thesis
beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago
I wouldn't say "believe" is the most accurate way to describe it. They're just very skeptical of the insights from statistical analysis of works in the mediums because there usually aren't very good large data sources. Cinemetrics.lv was amazing before the domain was stolen and had a large community of film academics using it. In literature, a big problem has been the way that publishers do not allow access to any of their data, some public access programs are starting to try to overcome that though. In general, though, most humanities academics aren't interested in statistical analysis or its insights, not because they don't believe in them, but because the insights generally aren't that useful or likely so general as to be not that useful for very specific research programs.
- sandspar 2y ago
  >Humanities aren't interested in math because it isn't useful for them. Or they just don't understand it. ~115 IQ field vs ~130 IQ field.
- passion__desire 2y ago
  Computer has become accessible only last 1-2 decades. (Python) Libraries which allow for easy computation of stats have been popular for far less than that. (Wide availability of) People experienced with such methods having been around for even less. So I can understand why outsiders won't bother themselves with using mathematics to find insights.
bccdee 2y ago
Mathematics can only give you insight into things that can be quantified. When people try do things like (say) perform a statistical analysis of the tone of a narrative, they have to either go through and numerically quantify the tone of each passage (time-consuming & of dubious value) or feed the whole thing through sentiment analysis software (practically useless). You'll learn much more from a close subjective reading of a few interesting passages.
- carlmr 2y ago
  But we're talking about chapter lengths here, something that is trivially measurable.
  - watwut 2y ago
    The term "ideal chapter length" is not objective measurable term.
    - passion__desire 2y ago
      Math has much more complex tools to deal with uncertainties. Error bars, distributions, grouping based on various criteria. learn more about them.
      - watwut 2y ago
        None of them helps to clarify what "ideal chapter length" means. This is not about uncertainty in terms of probabilities, this is about the term meaning different things to different people. This is exactly what is the problem - none of the stuff you suggest has remotely anything to do with what the actual question is.
        passion__desire 2y ago
        But somehow using more words to explain other "words" will solve the problem.
watwut 2y ago
A lot of bad science consist on applying math on subjective things with unclear definitions (ideal chapter) and then insisting that this is useful. You then end up with ridiculousness like a guy from IT insisting that widely popular and simultaneously critically acclaimed book is actually bad, because it does not conform to whatever random statistics he misapplied.
- carlmr 2y ago
  This is just Goodhart's law in action: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.. The measure still might be interesting, but it shouldn't be used as a target to guide decisions about what is or isn't a good book.
- passion__desire 2y ago
  So according to you, subjective analysis of subjective things is ok because humans are in charge, knowing fully well how many biases we carry around?
  - watwut 2y ago
    No. And what you wrote suggests that you do not actually know what "humanities departments" or in this case literature departments actually do. Also, misapplied statistic is not "objective" despite containing numbers.
    - passion__desire 2y ago
      misapplied literary analysis is also exactly that. what is your point?

Depends on what you mean by traditionally. This division is largely a consequence of the battle between scientific-technical education and classics/Latin-Greek education in the 19th century. Prior to that, there was definitely a ton of overlap between humanities and mathematics - consider Leibniz as a prime example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

passion__desire 2y ago
Conside the "Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis" theory. It is nothing but Synthesis = λ × Antithesis + (1 - λ) × Thesis

beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago

I wouldn't say "believe" is the most accurate way to describe it. They're just very skeptical of the insights from statistical analysis of works in the mediums because there usually aren't very good large data sources. Cinemetrics.lv was amazing before the domain was stolen and had a large community of film academics using it. In literature, a big problem has been the way that publishers do not allow access to any of their data, some public access programs are starting to try to overcome that though. In general, though, most humanities academics aren't interested in statistical analysis or its insights, not because they don't believe in them, but because the insights generally aren't that useful or likely so general as to be not that useful for very specific research programs.

sandspar 2y ago
>Humanities aren't interested in math because it isn't useful for them. Or they just don't understand it. ~115 IQ field vs ~130 IQ field.
passion__desire 2y ago
Computer has become accessible only last 1-2 decades. (Python) Libraries which allow for easy computation of stats have been popular for far less than that. (Wide availability of) People experienced with such methods having been around for even less. So I can understand why outsiders won't bother themselves with using mathematics to find insights.

bccdee 2y ago

Mathematics can only give you insight into things that can be quantified. When people try do things like (say) perform a statistical analysis of the tone of a narrative, they have to either go through and numerically quantify the tone of each passage (time-consuming & of dubious value) or feed the whole thing through sentiment analysis software (practically useless). You'll learn much more from a close subjective reading of a few interesting passages.

carlmr 2y ago
But we're talking about chapter lengths here, something that is trivially measurable.
- watwut 2y ago
  The term "ideal chapter length" is not objective measurable term.
  - passion__desire 2y ago
    Math has much more complex tools to deal with uncertainties. Error bars, distributions, grouping based on various criteria. learn more about them.
    - watwut 2y ago
      None of them helps to clarify what "ideal chapter length" means. This is not about uncertainty in terms of probabilities, this is about the term meaning different things to different people. This is exactly what is the problem - none of the stuff you suggest has remotely anything to do with what the actual question is.
      - passion__desire 2y ago
        But somehow using more words to explain other "words" will solve the problem.

watwut 2y ago

A lot of bad science consist on applying math on subjective things with unclear definitions (ideal chapter) and then insisting that this is useful. You then end up with ridiculousness like a guy from IT insisting that widely popular and simultaneously critically acclaimed book is actually bad, because it does not conform to whatever random statistics he misapplied.

carlmr 2y ago
This is just Goodhart's law in action: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.. The measure still might be interesting, but it shouldn't be used as a target to guide decisions about what is or isn't a good book.
passion__desire 2y ago
So according to you, subjective analysis of subjective things is ok because humans are in charge, knowing fully well how many biases we carry around?
- watwut 2y ago
  No. And what you wrote suggests that you do not actually know what "humanities departments" or in this case literature departments actually do. Also, misapplied statistic is not "objective" despite containing numbers.
  - passion__desire 2y ago
    misapplied literary analysis is also exactly that. what is your point?