Seems like a strange thing to despise. We apply mathematics to nature in order to wring more information out than we would otherwise anticipate, so it is exploitative, so OK. This is something I noticed when I was studying engineering, that mathematics enables us to wring a wide range of information from a small number of inputs by considering what is implied by the mathmatical relationships.
When it comes to the subatomic realm it turns out we are incapable of understanding it intuitively. Only mathematics can help us, but then mathematics can be thought of as a kind of intuition. But intuiting it in a manner similar to the way human scale mechanics makes intuitive sense from our experience with material objects is out of the question. We never have access to things-in-themselves in all their unknowable horror, that is, their utter indifference to our concerns. Einstein dearly wanted an intuitively graspable way to understand of the subatomic realm but the fact that our ancestors did not need to know that in order to survive, reproduce, and out compete other species means neither he nor anyone else had any reason to demand it. Lovecraft understood this sense of horror. The things that lie just outside of our mental grasp are the scariest.
I know when I reread this after I post it I'll be like, WHAT!?