It’s always been curious to me that the NBA writers, bloggers and fans that describe themselves as “stats heads” are the ones who are the least willing to accept uncertainty. This player is bad. This system is outdated. This coach or GM is dumb. Those are very certain statements made by people who claim to live and think in an uncertain world. How are they so certain? “Statistics” told them so. Statistics and box scores.
As far as I can tell, mathematics is a ball of collective human knowledge that ranges from the practical to the wholly abstract.