Ever since our ancestors devised numbers, we've used them to measure places, heights, distances, and hypotheses. But with today's giant calculating instrumentations, the western world also uses numbers to play God....!
Look at it this way. We're told that God alone understands the ways and mysteries of life. However, in recent generations we've come to believe we can crowd His act a little. If only we can slap some numbers on these ways and mysteries. Take these numbers for example: 7, 10, 15, 25, 33 and 40.
Working our way through a planet of sometimes incalculable chaos, fitting numbers like these to situations can help us feel we better understand them. Take the number 7. Recently "Money Magazine" pegged Oak Park as #7 among American cities for the "young and single." No matter that most Oak Parkers you ask have no idea what the hell that means, it probably means a lot to house hunters and realtors. The number 7 has somehow given insight into the heart and soul of a community.
The number 10 is the latest ranking of American universities compared with other nations. The number 15 is the average number of shoes owned by women (in contrast to only 7 by men). The percentage of seniors driving is projected to hit a high of 25 in the next generation. The number 33 is the percentage of Mississippians who are obese (highest in the land). And 40 is the percentage drop in divorces since the recession.
Are you beginning to get the idea...? With the right numbers pinned to the right events, hokus pocus we're suddenly gifted with some serious understandings about life in Oak Park, on American campuses, between men and women, down highways, throughout Mississippi, and marriage in America!
OK, a bit of an exaggeration. It's not fair to pick on mathematicians and statisticians who are by and large wonderful folks. But consider the deeper implications here. You and I and the other 6 billion humanoids groping our way through the dark ways and mysteries of our existence need something to hang on to. A strong hand whose firm grip makes us feel a little more secure.
At one time that hand was that of primitive idols and gods. Later, sophisticated images and gods. But then as more and more post-Enlightenment populations in the west began to doubt the powers of their old god for the newly discovered powers of their human reason, it became necessary to find new concepts to explain the ways and mysteries into which we have been born.
Eureka! By splicing and dicing numbers -- from the lovely green ways of Oak Park to the vast black mysteries of galactic space -- numbers can explain things. Not entirely, but at least enough so that when we finish reading the latest numerical report, we can say to ourselves: "Whew, something else I don't have to think about anymore. I've got the answer!"
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Numbers just end up confusing me :-) And I think too many numbers take out the human element...which has been unfortunately done too much lately. I know we need numbers for some things, but I wish the "powers that be" wouldn't bring it "all down" equations!
ReplyDeleteHey, Emily, you just said it better than I did...why bring everything down to equations... there's a place for equations, but life and its inhabitants are sums far greater than the total of their numerical parts. At least I've always wanted to believe that....
ReplyDeleteI was never very good at math! I'll stick with people.
ReplyDeleteThe number of shoes I own is no where near the "so called average"!
Ahhh, the old women's-shoes test! I've also been told the reported numbers are wrong. Just goes to prove our case about numbers getting out of hand as a way of understanding ourselves.
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