Theodore Porter

Theodore Porter Theodore M. Porter (born 1953) is an American historian of science. He was elected in 2008 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was awarded in 2023 the George Sarton Medal. Quotes The systematic study of social numbers in the spirit of natural philosophy was pioneered during the 1660s, and was known for about a century and a half as political arithmetic. Its purpose, when not confined to the calculation of insurance or annuity rates, was the promotion of sound, well-informed state policy. ...William Petty, who invented the phrase "political arithmetic" and is thought by many to have had a hand in the composition of John Graunt Graunt's work, was in full accord with his friend as to the purpose of these studies. Political arithmetic was, in his view, the application of Baconian principles to the art of government. The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900 Princeton paperbacks Princeton University Press 1986 9780691024097 https://books.google.com/books?id=5a2a3jlBNb0C&pg=PA18 18–19 (333 pages) Although Trust in Numbers seems to work as a memorable Title (publishing) title, it can mislead. The book is not about implicit trust, but reluctance and hesitation. Numbers that appear sufficiently routine may pass under the radar, but when conflicting interests are at stake, they are readily challenged. They often require standardization. This typically involves putting aside deep meanings and convictions in favor of compromise and convention. The title came to me in reaction to my editor's suggestion of "Truth in Numbers," which I rejected at once. Preface to the New Edition Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life Princeton University Press 2020 9780691210544 https://books.google.com/books?id=53nTDwAAQBAJ&pg=PR7 vii–xvii (344 pages; 1st edition 1995; quote from p. vii) Beginning in 1892, when he took up statistics as his scientific vocation, Karl Pearson devoted himself relentlessly to a project of almost universal quantification. This work, the invention of a Mathematical statistics mathematical field of statistics, defined one of the landmark transitions in the history of the sciences, or indeed of public rationality. Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age Princeton paperbacks: History/Science Princeton University Press 2004 9780691114453 https://books.google.com/books?id=iyIi0OdJw0kC&pg=PA1 1 (342 pages) A bitter debate in the early twentieth century between "biometricians" and "Mendelians" about how best to study Heredity biological inheritance seemed to end in a victory for genetics, defined by a focus on discrete nuggets of hereditary causation for which Wilhelm Johannsen in 1909 coined the term "gene." The new genetics emphasized microscopy, Selective breeding agricultural breeding, and model organisms. Despite geneticists' intense engagement with eugenics and medicine, Homo sapiens was not their preferred organism. It was too resistant to laboratory manipulation and had too long a generation time in comparison to Drosophila fruit flies, nematodes, and viruses. Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity Princeton University Press 2018 9780691164540 https://books.google.com/books?id=zmuYDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA2 2 (464 pages) Quotes about Theodore M. Porter Our scientific culture, and much of our public life, is based on trust in numbers. They are commonly accepted as the means to achieving objectivity in analysis, certainty in conclusions, and truth. Numbers tell us about the health of our society (as in the rates of occurrence of unwanted behavior), and they provide a demarcation between what is accepted as safe and what is believed to be dangerous. In Trust in Numbers, Theodore Porter ... unpacks this assumption and uses history to show how such a trust may sometimes be based less on the solidity of the numbers themselves than on the needs of expert and client communities. ...Porter is to be congratulated for showing how intimate can be the mixture of Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy) objectivity and subjectivity, real and pseudo-quantification, awareness and self-deception, and vision and fantasy, in the invocation of trust in numbers. His historical insights can provide the materials we need for a debate on quality in quantities, a debate which is long overdue. Jerome Ravetz Jerome R. Ravetz, review of Trust in Numbers by Theodore M. Porter Issues in Science and Technology 13 2 Winter 1997 https://issues.org/ravetz/ External links Category:1953 births Category:Living people Category:Academics from the United States Category:Historians of science Category:Non-fiction authors from the United States Category:Princeton University alumni Category:Stanford University alumni Category:University of California, Los Angeles faculty Category:University of Virginia faculty Category:Guggenheim Fellows