Lately I've been thinking a lot (and writing a little) about ways to combine the qualitative and quantitative empirical traditions in political science, so I was quite interested to read a new post on the philosophy blog at the New York Times written by mathematician John Paulos. He contrasts the logic of story-telling with the logic of statistics to draw out some interesting implications for how each mode of understanding colors the ways we think about the world.

In a sentence that could have...