Data in Social Sciences

Data in Social Sciences

"Economic Measurement and the Values of Science" by Porter

• Quantification is a social technology rather than a measurement tool

  • A technology for managing event

  • Created the scientific practice of economics

• Created a link to the theory

• Modern economics resembles mathematics more than any other field

• Based less on reality than mathematical modeling

• Economic measures were an administrative tool

  • Empose discipline on the field - grand theories

  • Engineers used it for logistics

  • Enforce productivity

  • Correct societal wrongs

  • Provide attractive alternatives

  • Inform political decisions

"From Measuring Desire to Quantifying Expectations" by Brine & Poovey

• Follow the developments of Irving Fisher.

  • Equilibrium machine - abstract model demonstrating a theory but not reality

  • Two equations to establish relationships in the market - forecasting decisions

• Idealized states are never achievable

• Variables and behavior are more complex than a model can capture

  • Cannot quantify desire nor marginal utility

• The forecasted outcomes changed how people behaved in the market

• Econ data is removed from market realities - scrubbing data to make it calculable

• Naturalized economic assumptions that are unquestioned today - past data makes assumptions about the future

"A Sociology of Quantification" by Espeland & Stevens

• Quantification has become a social phenomenon

• Numbers create meaning and interpretation of the world

• Numbers both mark and create relationships

  • classification is fundamental to science

• Ethics of quantification:

  • Numbers are not the only path to the real

  • numerical representation has limitations

  • quantification cannot be a means to fairness

• Themes of a Sociology of Quantification:

  • Work - time and resources to create categories

  • Reactivity - people react to numbers

  • Discipline - numbers to describe a behavior may end up enforcing it

  • Authority - given through numbers and the means to those numbers

  • Aesthetic - good numerical graphics have sway in society

Open Ended

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Open Ended

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Open Ended

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Open Ended

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