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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感觉整本书的叙述结构可以做得更清楚的，现在读下来感觉就是我就一个大观点然后不停地用历史上的例子重复这个观点，掩盖了历史本身的细节和复杂。Objectivity这个概念也是躲躲闪闪地没说清楚。
评分《相信数字——科学和公共生活中对客观性的追求》是历史学家Porter的重要作品。作者通过研究19世纪的英国精算师，法国工程师以及20世纪的美国会计师和美国工程师，展示了不同政治文化下人们是怎么对待数字的，是有所保留（英法）还是完全拥抱（美）。里面的历史细节十分详尽。
评分Read it in the author's seminar. He said AHR didn't review this book because they don't think it is a history book.
评分Read it in the author's seminar. He said AHR didn't review this book because they don't think it is a history book.
评分感觉整本书的叙述结构可以做得更清楚的，现在读下来感觉就是我就一个大观点然后不停地用历史上的例子重复这个观点，掩盖了历史本身的细节和复杂。Objectivity这个概念也是躲躲闪闪地没说清楚。
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