I'd say that whether something is usefully measurable depends enormously on the topic.
For engineering it's closer to critic -- "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it." For the physical (including biological) sciences it's important when testing out new theories. But useless for coming up with those theories. For the social sciences, it ought to be important, again for testing theories (but again not useful creating them.) But currently, so much of it is poorly done that it isn't. At least not yet.
For the humanities, I'd say it's totally useless. Doesn't keep fools from trying to do it anyway. But it doesn't work because it can't work.
2025-10-08 20:26:30
I'd be interested to see the corruption index. My sense is that Russia, for example, is at a whole different level from China.
I think it's possible to have a growing economy dispite widespread corruption. But much harder than without that corruption. Also, I'd argue that there is a point where corruption gets so bad that economic growth becomes impossible. Clearly China isn't there. But I'm not sure how close they might be to the limit.
I'd say that whether something is usefully measurable depends enormously on the topic.
For engineering it's closer to critic -- "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it." For the physical (including biological) sciences it's important when testing out new theories. But useless for coming up with those theories. For the social sciences, it ought to be important, again for testing theories (but again not useful creating them.) But currently, so much of it is poorly done that it isn't. At least not yet.
For the humanities, I'd say it's totally useless. Doesn't keep fools from trying to do it anyway. But it doesn't work because it can't work.
I'd be interested to see the corruption index. My sense is that Russia, for example, is at a whole different level from China.
I think it's possible to have a growing economy dispite widespread corruption. But much harder than without that corruption. Also, I'd argue that there is a point where corruption gets so bad that economic growth becomes impossible. Clearly China isn't there. But I'm not sure how close they might be to the limit.