Talk:Mathematical fetishism

Warning: user:142.177.etc has returned -- please watch closely... User:194.51.2.34

Can this be NPOV'd? User:Vicki Rosenzweig


 * "mathematical fetishism" gets 16 hits, only one of which doesn't appear to have been created by 142.177. VFD. Graft 13:35, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * Not sure about 'only one' but following links leads to the possibility that EoT and 142.177 may be one and the same? 194.51.2.34 13:41, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm... Well, I guess if I had to have a sexual disorder, this would be the one I'd pick ;) -- Tim Starling 13:37, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Not my choice of term, just backfill of a name suggested elsewhere when someone disputed the existence of scientism. Referred on Religion, Truth, Mathematical beauty - if you remove this, you must rewrite those. I expect "mathematical beauty" would not score too well on a Google either. This article being generally math-skeptical, and "beauty" being generally math-positive, they might benefit from a merger. However, it really seems foolish to describe the real and dangerous problems that arise from numerical obsessions in real fields, in the same breath as one describes whimsy like whether numbers can be art. Or, another alternative, mention "fetishism" as an issue in foundations of measurement, when someone gets around to that, with a redirect from this name. At least, until you rewrite religion and truth to not refer to it. User:142.177.etc


 * "Mathematical beauty" gets "about 3,800" matches. A difference of two and a bit orders of magnitude. :)


 * Yup, I stand corrected. "Mathematical elegance" also gets a lot, and not to the same articles it seems.  Maybe this fetishism question is an issue of elegance over reality, and not an issue of beauty, nor really of belief in any particular power of numbers anyway.  'math fetish' however does seem to be in the popular domain, with about three pages of hits. User:142.177.etc


 * We're not just supposed to get people of different views to put them all forward and then merge them together; that would just result in a mess. We're supposed to report on widely-held views in the real world. This seems to be nothing but the personal views of one single individual. If you can quote some reasonably notable people using the term, then you might be able to cobble something useful together from that. But so far it seems that almost no-one even uses it. -- Oliver P. 14:05, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * Though I suspect many uses of the term also avoid the 'net, fair enough for now. As I say, it wasn't my term, it exists here only because someone differentiated this phenomenon from scientism on a talk page a while back, and gave it this seemingly reasonable name.  I should have checked it out.  I stand by the assertion that the phenomena is real, but, perhaps this is just an artifact of inattention to foundations of measurement.  If people didn't over-believe in measurements, no one would study their foundations.  User:142.177.etc