You seem to think that it is generally easy to turn arbitrary ambiguities into numbers
Yes, I do.
in a way amenable to using statistics to resolve them.
No, I do not. I said nothing about “resolving” things.
When I say “numbers” in the context of statistics, I really mean probability distributions, often uncertain probability distributions. For example, the probability of anything lies somewhere between zero and one—see, we don’t have any information, but we already have numbers.
You’re likely thinking that when I am turning ambiguities into numbers, I turn them into nice hard scalars, like “the probability of X is 0.7”. No, I don’t. I turn them into wide probability distributions, often without any claims about the shape of these distributions. That is still firmly within the purview of statistics.
Where the difficult part is gather data. If you can gather data that is relevant, then statistics are useful.
If you have no data, nothing is useful. Remember, the original context was how humanities teach us to deal with ambiguity. But if you have no data, humanities won’t help and if you do, you can use numbers.
I’m not saying that everything should be converted to numbers. My point is that there are disciplines—specifically statistics—that are designed to deal with uncertainty and, arguably, do it better than handwaving common in the humanities.
Yes, I do.
No, I do not. I said nothing about “resolving” things.
When I say “numbers” in the context of statistics, I really mean probability distributions, often uncertain probability distributions. For example, the probability of anything lies somewhere between zero and one—see, we don’t have any information, but we already have numbers.
You’re likely thinking that when I am turning ambiguities into numbers, I turn them into nice hard scalars, like “the probability of X is 0.7”. No, I don’t. I turn them into wide probability distributions, often without any claims about the shape of these distributions. That is still firmly within the purview of statistics.
If you have no data, nothing is useful. Remember, the original context was how humanities teach us to deal with ambiguity. But if you have no data, humanities won’t help and if you do, you can use numbers.
I’m not saying that everything should be converted to numbers. My point is that there are disciplines—specifically statistics—that are designed to deal with uncertainty and, arguably, do it better than handwaving common in the humanities.
Your confidence in your ability to do statistics to everything is clearly unassailable, and I have no desire to be strawmanned further.