Later, due to adverse criticism, the UN discontinued this index. We could compile, I feel sure, an Index of Prohibited Indices. According to some philosophers, quality and quantity are independent attributes. Once perceived, moreover, a quality cannot be reduced to more primitive concepts. Scientific and mathematical minds tend to see the matter differently.
Quality is seen as depending on and subordinate to quantity.
We could be referring to its thickness, tightness of weave, stretchability, durability, shrinkage after washing, all of these characteristics being measurable. Mathematics is employed to convert questions of quality to measurable and easily processed quantities. In some mathematical situations, particularly in the pre-electronic computer days, qualitative statements were more easily arrived at than quantitative statements. The result has been, in the last century, an emphasis on qualitative theories and a denigration of the quantitative. Whatever is quantitative carries with it the cachet of the scientific, the objective.