>My
>general observation is that those who reject the quantitative do so not
>only because of a clear philosophical set of beliefs that run squarely
>against the world view of quants, but because they may not have mastered
>the means, methods for multivariate stats etc and/or been alienated,
>confused, hurt in attempting to do so.
Pedro, I can only speak from my personal experience, but I find this old
chestnut misleading, even insulting. Another scenario is possible. My own
trajectory was something like this: having studied math and physics in high
school, worked as a computer programmer before going to college, applied to
study electronic engineeering at university and then, having started to
read philosophy and psychology, transfered to study natural sciences (of
which psychology was considered one!), and continued in my study of math
and physics through general relativity and quantum mechanics, I felt I had
a pretty good grasp of a variety of "quantitative methods" AND of their
limitations, especially when it came to the study of human phenomena. The
search for an alternative made a lot of sense to me at that point.
Surely I'm not the only New School researcher with this kind of background?
Martin
===========
Martin Packer
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, PA 15282
office: (412) 396-4852
department: (412) 396-6520
packer who-is-at duq3.cc.duq.edu
http://www.duq.edu/liberalarts/gradpsych/packer.html