The Need for Quantitative Explanations
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The need for quantitative explanations:

Scientific theories gain validity when experiments are conducted to test the theory. Experiments gather information through measurements, and measurements are valid in direct proportion to their accuracy. The measurement and the accuracy of the measurement (and thus the measurement of the accuracy) provide the quantitative basis of science. Of course, the theories themselves must be cast in quantitative form in order to present a comparison of theoretical prediction and experimental results. Without quantitative content science (as well as many other things) loses value. As examples, you might be a bit more assured if you are given directions to a destination as "two miles to the lights then left for three more miles" rather than "over that way." Pollsters are more likely to gain your confidence if they prognosticate with "Gore leads Bush by seven points with a margin of error of plus or minus one point" rather than with "looks like Gore's ahead." Finally, you probably got a better lab grade if you reported "My results were off by 18.5% compared with the predicted values, due to the use of crude equipment" than if your conclusions were reported as "Wow, it was a cool experiment, but I guess something went wrong because my answer was way off."