My Student, the Purist: A Lament1

SINCE I have been a frequent user of numerical and statistical techniques in research, I have sometimes been cast as a "methodologist." Unfortunately, such ascription, even when casually made, can go to one's head, and so in my pretentions I have sometimes been jarred by a student who would point out that I am "out of step." Through coercion and chicanery I have survived these encounters, but as time has passed there has been more pressure for me to make my position more subject to review.