The Challenges to Numbers: Gorillas and Trolleys
The power that Stone suggests we assign to numbers comes, in part, like all very powerful assumptions held by human societies, from the “invisibility” of the numbers. They profoundly influence how we view the world, yet we are often unaware of this influence. At one level, numbers help to determine what we attend to and what we ignore. On the one hand, as Stone notes, “if we don’t’ see it, we won’t count it.”. Stone (2021, pp. 34-35 recounts the now famous study of the gorilla who appears in a video but is not seen because the subject of this experiment are attending to another matter. Given that we value numbers, the unseen also become unvalued. A tight reciprocity is engaged. I believe that this reciprocity also works in the opposite direction: what we can’t count, we don’t see (or at least ignore). This second form of reciprocity might be even less often acknowledged – hence being that much more powerful. Both forms would seem to be toxic to credible and useful expertise in our contemporary world.
There is a second source of influence to which Stone devotes an entire chapter. We are inclined to use numbers when making important ethical judgments yet are typically not aware that we are relying on often inappropriate numerical criteria when making difficult decisions. Stone (2021, pp.292-203 turns to yet another noted study when making her case. We are the conductor of a trolley car (or the switchman beside the track) that is out of control and must make a quick decision whether to stay on the current track where there are five people tied to the track or divert to a sidetrack where there is one person tied to the track. The answer seems simple: move to the sidetrack. However, this means sacrificing the life of an innocent person who has been tied to the track for some unknown reason in order to save five other people.
As Stone notes, we are often caught in this moral dilemma when deciding between the welfare of one person and the welfare of the many. Do we allow the religious beliefs of one person impact the health of many other people? Do we allow one legislator to block the passage of a bill approved by a majority of other legislators in order to preserve the rights of this one, dissenting member of the governing body? Stone would suggest that these moral dilemmas are rarely best solved by counting heads. We sometimes choose to retain our current course of action (stay on the main track) for a good reason and support the religious freedom or rights of the dissenter. Number counting is not a substitute for moral reasoning. Expertise often is to be found among philosophers (humanities culture) rather than statisticians (science culture).
Given these challenges to the sacred throne in which numbers and science now sit in most 21st Century societies, Deborah Stone (2021, pp. 217-218) offers the following wise advice regarding those who are enamored by and become experts in the use of numbers:
Stay humble. Numbers are the products of our poor power to make sense of our lives. They aren’t truth meters. We shouldn’t use them as arbiters of political conflicts or as answer to ethical quandaries. . . Numbers contain the stories people tell each other and themselves. Hold your ear to a number as to a seashell and listen to its whispers.
With this cautionary note and request for numbers-folks to embrace a humble attitude, I turn to the challenges faced by the narratives-folks. I am applying the equal time policy in exploring the best ways in which to become a Cosmopolitan expert who can move between Snow’s two cultures.
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