Trust in numbers : the pursuit of objectivity in science and public life
著者
書誌事項
Trust in numbers : the pursuit of objectivity in science and public life
Princeton University Press, c1995
- : pbk
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注記
Includes bibliographical references (p. [269]-301) and index
内容説明・目次
- 巻冊次
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: pbk ISBN 9780691029085
内容説明
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.
目次
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
- 巻冊次
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ISBN 9780691037769
内容説明
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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