RE: Are you a lumper or a splitter?
April 24, 2018 at 2:08 pm
(This post was last modified: April 24, 2018 at 2:19 pm by Anomalocaris.)
There are times and occasions when seemingly small differences affords profound insights. There are also other times when focusing on small differences obscure larger patterns.
It seems to me whether lumping or splitting is appropriate should depend entirely on what one is trying to achieve. The dispute between limpers and splitters arose largely because attempts to find the least suboptimal one size fits all solution, or perhaps even subconscious attempt by some interested party to suppress particular insights that might be gained from either small but significant differences, or larger commonalities.
It depends on the criteria which is used to affect the split, and whether the resulting split really afford insights into significant differences, or if it merely result in a distinction without any meaningful differences.
It seems to me whether lumping or splitting is appropriate should depend entirely on what one is trying to achieve. The dispute between limpers and splitters arose largely because attempts to find the least suboptimal one size fits all solution, or perhaps even subconscious attempt by some interested party to suppress particular insights that might be gained from either small but significant differences, or larger commonalities.
(April 24, 2018 at 11:49 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Interesting poll. I voted splitter. I think as a general rule, you can learn more about anything specific if you pay attention to small differences and split them up, vs having a more broad view and lumping everything together into the same big group and leaving it that way.
It depends on the criteria which is used to affect the split, and whether the resulting split really afford insights into significant differences, or if it merely result in a distinction without any meaningful differences.
