Trust in Numbers The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life

Name: Trust in Numbers The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life
Price: 20.86 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780691029085

ISBN-10: 0691029083

ISBN-13: 9780691029085

Edition: 1995

Authors: Theodore M. Porter

List price: $57.50

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Description:

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…

Book details

List price: $57.50
Copyright year: 1995
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication date: 10/6/1996
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 328
Size: 6.26" wide x 9.41" long x 0.69" tall
Weight: 1.254
Language: English



Preface


Acknowledgments


Introduction: Cultures of Objectivity



Power in Numbers



A World of Artifice



How Social Numbers Are Made Valid



Economic Measurement and the Values of Science



The Political Philosophy of Quantification



Technologies of Trust



Experts against Objectivity: Accountants and Actuaries



French State Engineers and the Ambiguities of Technocracy



U.S. Army Engineers and the Rise of Cost-Benefit Analysis



Political and Scientific Communities



Objectivity and the Politics of Disciplines



Is Science Made by Communities?


Notes


Bibliography


Index