Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Numerical data and the meaning of measurement
- 2 Quantitative psychology's intellectual inheritance
- 3 Quantity, number and measurement in science
- 4 Early psychology and the quantity objection
- 5 Making the representational theory of measurement
- 6 The status of psychophysical measurement
- 7 A definition made to measure
- 8 Quantitative psychology and the revolution in measurement theory
- Glossary
- List of references
- Index
- IDEAS IN CONTEXT
1 - Numerical data and the meaning of measurement
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Numerical data and the meaning of measurement
- 2 Quantitative psychology's intellectual inheritance
- 3 Quantity, number and measurement in science
- 4 Early psychology and the quantity objection
- 5 Making the representational theory of measurement
- 6 The status of psychophysical measurement
- 7 A definition made to measure
- 8 Quantitative psychology and the revolution in measurement theory
- Glossary
- List of references
- Index
- IDEAS IN CONTEXT
Summary
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
(James Thurber)He that forsakes measure, measure forsakes him.
(Fergusson's Scottish proverbs)There is a myth about the way in which science works. Scientists attempt to find out how natural systems work. From what little they can glean initially by unaided observation and by analogy with what they think are similar systems, they form hypotheses about the workings of the systems they are studying and put these hypotheses to the test. They do this by making predictions from their hypotheses and then checking these predictions via observations aided by scientific methods, which may include experiments, measurements, and so on. These methods often involve elaborate equipment, stringent controls and highly standardised procedures. Because of their sophistication they are thought to provide a transparent window on reality. They show us how things really are. Observations made, the predictions can be checked against the data and science moves a step forward: the hypothesis is confirmed or falsified and this general procedure repeated. In this way, it is thought, science moves ever closer, by successive approximations, to an understanding of how natural systems work.
Like many myths, this one contains some truth. But if research in the history and philosophy of science over the past half-century has shown anything of value, it has shown that the methods that scientists use to test their hypotheses are not transparent windows on the world.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Measurement in PsychologyA Critical History of a Methodological Concept, pp. 1 - 23Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
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