Awards

• Winner of Ludwig Fleck Prize of the Society for the Social Studies of Science 1997 (United States)
• Winner of Society for Social Studies of Science: Ludwig Fleck Prize 1997
• Winner of Society for Social Studies of Science: Ludwig Fleck Prize 1997.

Overview

Investigates the appeal of quantification in the modern world. This book discusses the development of cultural meanings of objectivity over two centuries. It 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.

Full Product Details

9780691029085

Table of Contents

Reviews

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

Author 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).

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