Post Positivist?

I must admit, my decision to take our class was at least partly based on my belief that I am an empiricist.  That is, I have difficulty believing that we have anything but input from our senses to judge reality by.  I do believe in capital "T" Truth.  Though, I believe that there is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to this notion.  I don't believe in relative truth and as I've discussed this with many people, relativist and absolutist, I've come to realize that most people believe the exact same things about truth and that the problem is semantic.
 I was curious about the nature of empirical research and how it fits into the world of rhetoric and composition.  I stated once in class that I believe that quantitative research has more "weight", more definitive value than qualitative research.  I can see though that this assumption is based on my own values.  This brings me to my self evaluation and position among the researcher definitions we've been discussing.  Dr Almjeld stated once that "some people are comforted by numbers" (or something like that) and that statement clearly suits me.  I am more likely to value quantitative research because I prefer to begin with those facts that we can definitely know.  This attitude is likely more useful in the sciences or ethics or sports or any discipline with a paradigm that relies on formal logic/math.  I'm not sure if rhet/comp fits in that category yet.  After our discussions and and readings I see that the field of rhet/comp still has some decisions to make on that avenue as well.

To be clear, I'm not saying that studies with too-broad implications and weak mathematical conclusions should be favored simply because they are quantitative.  I do believe that more practical value can be wrought by a good qualitative study in the right circumstances and, most importantly, with the understood disclaimer that, as many of you have pointed out, what works in one circumstance may not work again.  I believe that there is always value in greater understanding of our research subjects and qualitative research can of course facilitate that understanding.   However, I do believe (this is going to get weird) that our eventual understanding of the world will come down to an understanding of math.  This is a strange concept, I know, though many philosophers share this belief.  Bertrand Russel is one of my favorites in this school of thought. Much of my fiction deals with this belief as it is emerging into our consciousness.

I brought up wildlife sciences as an example of a discipline where quantitative research has taken over a field where qualitative once ruled.  Below is an example.  Many scientists are discovering that math rules even the behavior of animals in a way we never before imagined.  Enjoy, feel free to tear me apart.

Prairie dogs understood through math

Some other relevant things I believe:

New Mysterianism

Desert-Adjusted Utilitarianism