Trust in Numbers (häftad)
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Format
Häftad (Paperback / softback)
Språk
Engelska
Antal sidor
328
Utgivningsdatum
1996-10-01
Upplaga
New e.
Utmärkelser
Winner of Society for Social Studies of Science: Ludwig Fleck Prize 1997
Förlag
Princeton University Press
Originalspråk
English
Illustrationer
black & white illustrations
Dimensioner
236 x 155 x 20 mm
Vikt
460 g
Antal komponenter
1
Komponenter
49:B&W 6.14 x 9.21 in or 234 x 156 mm (Royal 8vo) Perfect Bound on White w/Gloss Lam
ISBN
9780691029085

Trust in Numbers

The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life

av Theodore M Porter
Häftad,  Engelska, 1996-10-01
701
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This investigation of the overwhelming appeal of quantification in the modern world discusses the development of cultural meanings of objectivity over two centuries. How are we to account for the current prestige and power of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is seen as desirable in social and economic investigation as a result of its successes in the study of nature. Theodore Porter is not content with this. Why should the kind of success achieved in the study of stars, molecules, or cells be an attractive model for research on human societies? he asks. And, indeed, how should we understand the pervasiveness of quantification in the sciences of nature? In his view, we should look in the reverse direction: comprehending the attractions of quantification in business, government, and social research will teach us something new about its role in psychology, physics, and medicine. Drawing on a wide range of examples from the laboratory and from the worlds of accounting, insurance, cost-benefit analysis, and civil engineering, Porter shows that it is "exactly wrong" to interpret the drive for quantitative rigor as inherent somehow in the activity of science except where political and social pressures force compromise. Instead, quantification grows from attempts to develop a strategy of impersonality in response to pressures from outside. Objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts, quantification becoming most important where elites are weak, where private negotiation is suspect, and where trust is in short supply.
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Winner of the 1997 Ludwig Fleck Prize, Society for the Social Studies of Science "The essence of science is quantification, and this is what holds Porter's fascination. The book is an engaging attempt to account for the prestige and power of quantitative methods in the modern world."--Ann Oakley, British Medical Journal "... provides a powerful means for understanding quantification in a variety of different contexts."--American Journal of Sociology "Porter's book is compelling, beautifully written, and makes an important contribution to our understanding of one of the most fundamental features of modernity: the rise of quantification."--Contemporary Sociology "A highly original series of historical and philosophical reflections... "--M. Norton Wise, British Journal for the History of Science "Porter delivers a fine, scholarly account of how numerical measurement is used both to standardise results and to communicate them unambiguously."--Jon Turney, New Scientist "A closely reasoned, densely written historical account of how nonscientific people came to use numbers for political purposes... When there is nothing else to trust, it seems, people trust numbers."--Rudy Rucker, Scientific American

Övrig information

Theodore M. Porter, Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles, is the author of The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900 (Princeton).

Innehållsförteckning

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Cultures of Objectivity3Pt. IPower in Numbers9Ch. 1A World of Artifice11Ch. 2How Social Numbers Are Made Valid33Ch. 3Economic Measurement and the Values of Science49Ch. 4The Political Philosophy of Quantification73Pt. IITechnologies of Trust87Ch. 5Experts against Objectivity: Accountants and Actuaries89Ch. 6French State Engineers and the Ambiguities of Technocracy114Ch. 7U.S. Army Engineers and the Rise of Cost-Benefit Analysis148Pt. IIIPolitical and Scientific Communities191Ch. 8Objectivity and the Politics of Disciplines193Ch. 9Is Science Made by Communities?217Notes233Bibliography269Index303

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