If you are an American, you are used to hearing (or maybe you’ve said it), “Reality is my reality. It is what I say it is.” How far does that philosophy go in “the real world”? What’s that, you say? Who’s to say what is “real”? If you asked, then you do, in fact, adhere to a belief that “reality is an internal matter.” And, with enough qualifications, your belief is hard to dispute. But surely, even you recognize that some processes and materials are real. Cancer, for example, or injury by car accident or assault. Or, what about bank accounts or trees? How about math, or at least, about arithmetic?
The recent flap over a statement by Kareem Carr, a self-identified Harvard-trained analyst, that 2 + 2 = 5 makes an interesting comment on perception of reality. The problem with Carr’s thought is that it uses numbers to play with meanings and vice versa. Whereas there’s some truth to his claim that statisticians use “models” to manipulate data and that mathematical terms can be interpreted subjectively, the hard realities of daily life demand a universally applicable arithmetic. Carr’s thoughts on the topic make a Twitter feed that elicited a number of responses, some of them quite humorous.* The most humorous of responses, in my mind, is by David Sinfield: “If you give me £5 and I give you £2. + £2 back, we’re good, right?” Reality is inescapable when it affects the wallet. It’s also inescapable when cancer, hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami strikes.
There’s little doubt that the traditional way of counting is highly practical. Want to build a brick wall of a certain height and length? You don’t have to estimate the number of bricks. Given the measurements of a standard brick and its accompanying mortar joints, a relatively untrained mathematician can buy the precise number of bricks needed to build the wall. Maybe Carr understands that; maybe his point only concerns how data analysts can manipulate data or use numbers “to create reality.”
But the flap over the answer to the problem 2 + 2 bespeaks a larger flap that pervades the minds of academicians and their young students. Outside academia “things” get real. Outside the world of the ideal, realities have consequences. But when anyone tries to objectify matters moral, political, social, or philosophical, many inside academia or inside ideological castles maintain a subjectivist’s position. We’re seeing this today with regard to rioting in American cities, rioting that is not acknowledged by some, such as Congressman Jerry Nadler, who called the riots and their anarchic perpetrators “a myth.” **
I suppose being subjective is an inescapable characteristic of all of us; that is, inescapable until our own wallets or lives are affected. More than 700 police officers have been injured and more than 30 people have been killed in “protest” areas over the past few months. The math is a rather gruesome reality for those injured and killed. It is also a gruesome reality for merchants who have lost money and business totaling millions of dollars.
Yet, here we are, occupied by an analyst in an academic squabble over the meaning of 2 + 2. No doubt those who can put Carr’s thoughts in the perspective of data analysis will side with subjective interpretations. And I can understand their subjectivism in light of their distance from the realities of injury, loss of property, and death. Out of sight, so to speak. But when the realities of life are forced upon individuals’ consciousness, numbers become real. Look, for example, at the paucity of paper products like toilet paper on grocery store shelves. The number of rolls is quantifiably insufficient to meet the objective demands of subjective people.
But let’s go back to Carr’s point about subjectivity and data analysis. At the same time that riots occupy the minds of some, the pandemic’s numbers occupy the minds of just about everyone. And here, we see that numbers can be manipulated and mean different things to different people. When the CDC says that only 6% of the COVID-19 deaths were in people without co-morbidities, the population of people without such risk factors sees the disease one way. Those with “co-morbidities” see the disease another way. And the arguments multiply: “But those with co-morbidities like diabetes would have lived longer lives under doctors’ care if they hadn’t contracted the disease. Therefore, the virus can be directly blamed for their deaths.” Makes sense, doesn’t it? Then why does an agency like the CDC put out a statement about deaths outside the co-morbid population? Obviously, it’s making a distinction. It is pointing out a cause with a numerical conclusion. And then there’s the question about how any death is counted as a COVID death, a question raised by reports both that testing returns tenuous results and that money is involved in labeling because both hospitals and individuals can receive benefits otherwise unavailable to them.
The matter of the meaning and efficacy of math seems like a silly academic argument, a game for rhetoricians to pursue in debates without consequences other than bragging rights about who beat whom. Instead, math (or arithmetic) is often a matter of concern as it relates to personal risk and potential personal danger. Am I one of those who would fall into the 6% category or into the 94% category? And can I believe the quantification of study results on the efficacy of therapeutic drugs that cure the disease?
Take the numbers associated with Hydroxychloroquine. A Belgian study of more than 8,000 people infected by the virus led to the conclusion that the ordinary prescription for the malaria medicine was an effective therapy for many, reducing deaths by an objective percent (you can look it up, but I think it was at least 30%).*** The standard dosage has been used safely for decades. However, a WHO study of far fewer COVID patients on the medicine (than the Belgian study) used an amount about twice that of the standard dosage, and then its results became the widespread conclusion that Hydroxychloroquine is ineffective. The WHO study got wider coverage than the Belgian study. Populations around the planet heard the results of one and not the results of the other.
Subjectivity in math or arithmetic might have a place in human affairs, but not when those affairs are both the livelihoods and lives of “real” individuals.
*https://twitter.com/kareem_carr/status/1300231244916064256
**https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-iba-syn&hsimp=yhs-syn&hspart=iba&p=nadler+calls+rioters+a+myth#id=1&vid=6efe217f294c6e9b5ac9c0198fe4ff6d&action=click
***See video on YouTube of Dr. John Campbell’s discussion of hydroxychloroquine under the title “Hydroxychloroquine, evidence of efficacy,” August 27, 2020. For the study of 8,075 patients, see
Catteau, Lucy PharmD, PhD, et al., Low-does Hydroxychloroquine Therapy and Mortality in Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19: A Nationwide Observational Study of 8,075 Participants. Published online through ScienceDirect/Elsevier, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, 24 August 2020, 106144, online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920303423
For related studies, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477893920302817?via%3Dihub
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-05983-z
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30534-8/fulltext
Media with political agendas pushed the WHO study to the foreground and ignored the Belgian and other studies, demonstrating that some would rather foist their political and highly subjective analyses onto an unsuspecting audience even though such omission could exacerbate human suffering. The same media failed to cover the violence in cities, the deaths associated with the movement du jour, and the businesses—and thus neighborhoods—destroyed by looters.
The recent flap over a statement by Kareem Carr, a self-identified Harvard-trained analyst, that 2 + 2 = 5 makes an interesting comment on perception of reality. The problem with Carr’s thought is that it uses numbers to play with meanings and vice versa. Whereas there’s some truth to his claim that statisticians use “models” to manipulate data and that mathematical terms can be interpreted subjectively, the hard realities of daily life demand a universally applicable arithmetic. Carr’s thoughts on the topic make a Twitter feed that elicited a number of responses, some of them quite humorous.* The most humorous of responses, in my mind, is by David Sinfield: “If you give me £5 and I give you £2. + £2 back, we’re good, right?” Reality is inescapable when it affects the wallet. It’s also inescapable when cancer, hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami strikes.
There’s little doubt that the traditional way of counting is highly practical. Want to build a brick wall of a certain height and length? You don’t have to estimate the number of bricks. Given the measurements of a standard brick and its accompanying mortar joints, a relatively untrained mathematician can buy the precise number of bricks needed to build the wall. Maybe Carr understands that; maybe his point only concerns how data analysts can manipulate data or use numbers “to create reality.”
But the flap over the answer to the problem 2 + 2 bespeaks a larger flap that pervades the minds of academicians and their young students. Outside academia “things” get real. Outside the world of the ideal, realities have consequences. But when anyone tries to objectify matters moral, political, social, or philosophical, many inside academia or inside ideological castles maintain a subjectivist’s position. We’re seeing this today with regard to rioting in American cities, rioting that is not acknowledged by some, such as Congressman Jerry Nadler, who called the riots and their anarchic perpetrators “a myth.” **
I suppose being subjective is an inescapable characteristic of all of us; that is, inescapable until our own wallets or lives are affected. More than 700 police officers have been injured and more than 30 people have been killed in “protest” areas over the past few months. The math is a rather gruesome reality for those injured and killed. It is also a gruesome reality for merchants who have lost money and business totaling millions of dollars.
Yet, here we are, occupied by an analyst in an academic squabble over the meaning of 2 + 2. No doubt those who can put Carr’s thoughts in the perspective of data analysis will side with subjective interpretations. And I can understand their subjectivism in light of their distance from the realities of injury, loss of property, and death. Out of sight, so to speak. But when the realities of life are forced upon individuals’ consciousness, numbers become real. Look, for example, at the paucity of paper products like toilet paper on grocery store shelves. The number of rolls is quantifiably insufficient to meet the objective demands of subjective people.
But let’s go back to Carr’s point about subjectivity and data analysis. At the same time that riots occupy the minds of some, the pandemic’s numbers occupy the minds of just about everyone. And here, we see that numbers can be manipulated and mean different things to different people. When the CDC says that only 6% of the COVID-19 deaths were in people without co-morbidities, the population of people without such risk factors sees the disease one way. Those with “co-morbidities” see the disease another way. And the arguments multiply: “But those with co-morbidities like diabetes would have lived longer lives under doctors’ care if they hadn’t contracted the disease. Therefore, the virus can be directly blamed for their deaths.” Makes sense, doesn’t it? Then why does an agency like the CDC put out a statement about deaths outside the co-morbid population? Obviously, it’s making a distinction. It is pointing out a cause with a numerical conclusion. And then there’s the question about how any death is counted as a COVID death, a question raised by reports both that testing returns tenuous results and that money is involved in labeling because both hospitals and individuals can receive benefits otherwise unavailable to them.
The matter of the meaning and efficacy of math seems like a silly academic argument, a game for rhetoricians to pursue in debates without consequences other than bragging rights about who beat whom. Instead, math (or arithmetic) is often a matter of concern as it relates to personal risk and potential personal danger. Am I one of those who would fall into the 6% category or into the 94% category? And can I believe the quantification of study results on the efficacy of therapeutic drugs that cure the disease?
Take the numbers associated with Hydroxychloroquine. A Belgian study of more than 8,000 people infected by the virus led to the conclusion that the ordinary prescription for the malaria medicine was an effective therapy for many, reducing deaths by an objective percent (you can look it up, but I think it was at least 30%).*** The standard dosage has been used safely for decades. However, a WHO study of far fewer COVID patients on the medicine (than the Belgian study) used an amount about twice that of the standard dosage, and then its results became the widespread conclusion that Hydroxychloroquine is ineffective. The WHO study got wider coverage than the Belgian study. Populations around the planet heard the results of one and not the results of the other.
Subjectivity in math or arithmetic might have a place in human affairs, but not when those affairs are both the livelihoods and lives of “real” individuals.
*https://twitter.com/kareem_carr/status/1300231244916064256
**https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-iba-syn&hsimp=yhs-syn&hspart=iba&p=nadler+calls+rioters+a+myth#id=1&vid=6efe217f294c6e9b5ac9c0198fe4ff6d&action=click
***See video on YouTube of Dr. John Campbell’s discussion of hydroxychloroquine under the title “Hydroxychloroquine, evidence of efficacy,” August 27, 2020. For the study of 8,075 patients, see
Catteau, Lucy PharmD, PhD, et al., Low-does Hydroxychloroquine Therapy and Mortality in Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19: A Nationwide Observational Study of 8,075 Participants. Published online through ScienceDirect/Elsevier, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, 24 August 2020, 106144, online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920303423
For related studies, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477893920302817?via%3Dihub
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-05983-z
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30534-8/fulltext
Media with political agendas pushed the WHO study to the foreground and ignored the Belgian and other studies, demonstrating that some would rather foist their political and highly subjective analyses onto an unsuspecting audience even though such omission could exacerbate human suffering. The same media failed to cover the violence in cities, the deaths associated with the movement du jour, and the businesses—and thus neighborhoods—destroyed by looters.
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