there’s plenty of good work in most of them that can be done without math too
Yes. Two caveats:
1) The person doing the good work without math should remember to consult someone with the math skills before publishing their results, if they are trying to say something math-like.
For example, to invent a hypothesis, design an experiment and collect data, the math may be unnecessary. But it becomes necessary at the last step when the experimenter says: “So I did these experiments 10 times: 8 times the results seemed to support my hypothesis, 2 times they did not; therefore… what exactly?”
2) There should be enough people in the given field knowing the math, so when the person from the first example wants to find a colleague with domain knowledge and math skills, they actually find one.
Yes. Two caveats:
1) The person doing the good work without math should remember to consult someone with the math skills before publishing their results, if they are trying to say something math-like.
For example, to invent a hypothesis, design an experiment and collect data, the math may be unnecessary. But it becomes necessary at the last step when the experimenter says: “So I did these experiments 10 times: 8 times the results seemed to support my hypothesis, 2 times they did not; therefore… what exactly?”
2) There should be enough people in the given field knowing the math, so when the person from the first example wants to find a colleague with domain knowledge and math skills, they actually find one.