Resistance

There is resistance to using and working with data. Especially among decision-makers. To those who assert that statistics and statistical thinking are not related to effective management, I respectfully but adamantly disagree. The simple fact is that nothing is more important for effective management than the evidence provided by quantitative data and the statistical thinking required to develop, analyze, and use it. There are other things that are as important, but nothing is more important. If you are doing well without statistical thinking, then at least consider the possibility that you could be doing even better with it.

There is no resistance to mathematical avoidance. Indeed, it is facilitated. In many institutions, public and private, despite any rhetoric you may hear to the contrary, there seems to be a strong bias against mathematics and science, especially in the form of the statistically-based, scientific-method approach to decision making in the face of uncertainty. It is a sad fact that people with very weak backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, and science are now determining the mathematical, statistical, and scientific component of virtually all of our educational programs. Similar people are making important policy decisions that affect all of us. It should come as no surprise that they are making some very bad decisions. In our colleges and universities it is now possible, due to the elective system, to get a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, or even a doctorate, without ever taking an advanced course in mathematics. Many people have come to believe that the elective system is somehow the basis of a liberal arts or of a “good” education.They couldn’t be more wrong. The elective system is undermining us. If your undergraduate program did not include at least a year of calculus, then your undergraduate program was incomplete.

The long term negative consequences of quantitative and scientific “illiteracy” should not be underestimated. Bad things happen when you can’t do the math. Anecdotal and embarrassing evidence indicates that Toyota and Honda, in their U.S.plants, find U.S. employees unusually difficult to train due to their weak arithmetic and reading skills. They find that much remedial effort is required, even among those with college degrees.

This should not be.