🚀 go-pugleaf

Mr. Martin posted (in part):
>Metrics, a.k.a., everything can be quantified.  Wrong!  How many times must
>this be relearned?

The late Frank Sinatra, a paragon of musical quality, once recorded
"Everybody has the right to be wrong." The first amendment to the
Constitution of The United States further grants to its citizens the
right to express, among other things, a wrongful opinion. Mr. Martin thus
is well-defended but no less incorrect.

Everything that can be measured or described in words can be quantified.
In psychology we find scales for parental love and community ability, in
medicine, for pain, in politics, preferences from among multiple
candidates when even Key's voter's paradox applies and even in the realm
of marketing we can measure consumer preferences for color, taste,
packaging, desirability, sensory perception, cleanliness and other
seemingly unquantifiable attributes. The mathematical techniques are
well-known ranging from multidimensional scaling to newer methods using
the fuzzy logic of Zadeh, Kosko et. al.

One should be mindful that not all that can be measured should be.
Vannevar Bush, who headed the agency that initially acted as overseer for
the Manhattan Project, wrote, "It is not enough to discover something
new. It must mean something when we find it." In the Talmud one can read
"Tofasto merubo lo tofasto." He who seeks too much finds nothing.

Kwenda mzuri,

Frank Isackson
re:SOLUTIONS
205 West Walnut Avenue
Unit A
Monrovia, CA 91016
626 358 1340
626 358 1322 Fax
fisackson@aol.com