Statistics, Social Science, and the Culture of Objectivity

Contrary to the presumption common in the social sciences, that culture and rationality are in opposition and mutually exclusive of each other - a presumption shared by such different approaches as game theory, rational choice theory and cultural anthropology - , the author emphazises that cultures always have their own rationalities. Standards of reasonableness cannot be thought of as universal, but inevitably reflect culture. Rationality is conditioned, so the author argues, by political forms, economic circumstances, institutions, laws, and customs. This is also true for cultures of objectivity, which are based on the rejection of what is usually conceived of as subjective, linked to emotions and to the personal. The examples of the historic struggles relating to the profession of accountants and the invention of cost-benefit analysis in the United States enable the author to put forward the argument that the quest for objectivity is in itself the cultural expression of a need emerging within societies where political order is not self- evident. Not only bureaucracies impose general standards of administration to avoid severe political conflicts, but various outsiders in different spheres of a society try and manage to gain credibility by escaping what is tainted by personal interest and subjectivity. From this perspective, the author identifies the insistence on impersonal rules in science as a cultural response to conditions of distrust within the corresponding disciplines and in the larger society, and discusses the uses made of statistics in the social sciences characterised by the reduction of quantification to impersonal, unitary, almost mechanical, strategies of analysis.Contrary to the presumption common in the social sciences, that culture and rationality are in opposition and mutually exclusive of each other - a presumption shared by such different approaches as game theory, rational choice theory and cultural anthropology - , the author emphazises that cultures always have their own rationalities. Standards of reasonableness cannot be thought of as universal, but inevitably reflect culture. Rationality is conditioned, so the author argues, by political forms, economic circumstances, institutions, laws, and customs. This is also true for cultures of objectivity, which are based on the rejection of what is usually conceived of as subjective, linked to emotions and to the personal. The examples of the historic struggles relating to the profession of accountants and the invention of cost-benefit analysis in the United States enable the author to put forward the argument that the quest for objectivity is in itself the cultural expression of a need emerging within societies where political order is not self- evident. Not only bureaucracies impose general standards of administration to avoid severe political conflicts, but various outsiders in different spheres of a society try and manage to gain credibility by escaping what is tainted by personal interest and subjectivity. From this perspective, the author identifies the insistence on impersonal rules in science as a cultural response to conditions of distrust within the corresponding disciplines and in the larger society, and discusses the uses made of statistics in the social sciences characterised by the reduction of quantification to impersonal, unitary, almost mechanical, strategies of analysis

Overview of Instructional Technology Used in the Education of Occupational Therapy Students: A Survey Study

The purpose of this study was to explore the type of instructional technology (IT) master’s degree level occupational therapy educational programs routinely use as a part of their lecture- and laboratory-based instruction. Surveying the administrators of 121 graduate occupational therapy programs in the United States, we found that the majority of the respondents identified their program as using IT in some form for lecture-based courses, with less inclusion of IT for laboratory-based courses. Hybrid instruction, with the majority of the content being delivered face-to-face and the remainder via online, were the trends among the respondents. The findings also indicated that the respondents’ programs avoid certain IT, including synchronous online chat rooms or instant messaging, digital image collections, blogs or online journaling, Wikis, and audio/video podcasting. Few of the respondents said their programs had made a significant leap into implementing a larger online presence with instructional technology

New Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Quantitative Genetics

The aim of this collection is to bring together philosophical and historical perspectives to address long-standing issues in the interpretation, utility, and impacts of quantitative genetics methods and findings. Methodological approaches and the underlying scientific understanding of genetics and heredity have transformed since the field’s inception. These advances have brought with them new philosophical issues regarding the interpretation and understanding of quantitative genetic results. The contributions in this issue demonstrate that there is still work to be done integrating old and new methodological and conceptual frameworks. In some cases, new results are interpreted using assumptions based on old concepts and methodologies that need to be explicitly recognised and updated. In other cases, new philosophical tools can be employed to synthesise historical quantitative genetics work with modern methodologies and findings. This introductory article surveys three general themes that have dominated philosophical discussion of quantitative genetics throughout history: 1. How methodologies have changed and transformed our knowledge and interpretations; 2. Whether or not quantitative genetics can offer explanations relating to causation and prediction; 3. The importance of defining the phenotypes under study. We situate the contributions in this special issue within a historical framework addressing these three themes

‘The invention of counting: the statistical measurement of literacy in nineteenth-century England’

This article examines the invention of counting literacy on a national basis in nineteenth-century Britain. Through an analysis of Registrar Generals' reports, it describes how the early statisticians wrestled with the implications of their new-found capacity to describe a nation's communications skills in a single table and how they were unable to escape their model of a society of isolated individuals divided into the literate and illiterate. The continuing influence of this approach is traced in the recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIACC)

Establishment of macaque trophoblast stem cell lines derived from cynomolgus monkey blastocysts

The placenta forms a maternal-fetal junction that supports many physiological functions such as the supply of nutrition and exchange of gases and wastes. Establishing an in vitro culture model of human and non-human primate trophoblast stem/progenitor cells is important for investigating the process of early placental development and trophoblast differentiation. In this study, we have established five trophoblast stem cell (TSC) lines from cynomolgus monkey blastocysts, named macTSC #1-5. Fibroblast growth factor 4 (FGF4) enhanced proliferation of macTSCs, while other exogenous factors were not required to maintain their undifferentiated state. macTSCs showed a trophoblastic gene expression profile and trophoblast-like DNA methylation status and also exhibited differentiation capacity towards invasive trophoblast cells and multinucleated syncytia. In a xenogeneic chimera assay, these stem cells contributed to trophectoderm (TE) development in the chimeric blastocysts. macTSC are the first primate trophoblast cell lines whose proliferation is promoted by FGF4. These cell lines provide a valuable in vitro culture model to analyze the similarities and differences in placental development between human and non-human primates

Diagnostics: Indicators and Transparency in the Anti-Corruption Industry

Discussion of transparency and indexes of corruption and their effect on the growing anti-corruption movement. Trust in numbers may lead to opacity rather than transparenc

Efficiency-inducing taxation for a monopolistically supplied depletable resource

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/24462/1/0000737.pd

The emergence of modern statistics in agricultural science : Analysis of variance, experimental design and the reshaping of research at Rothamsted Experimental Station, 1919–1933

During the twentieth century statistical methods have transformed research in the experimental and social sciences. Qualitative evidence has largely been replaced by quantitative results and the tools of statistical inference have helped foster a new ideal of objectivity in scientific knowledge. The paper will investigate this transformation by considering the genesis of analysis of variance and experimental design, statistical methods nowadays taught in every elementary course of statistics for the experimental and social sciences. These methods were developed by the mathematician and geneticist R. A. Fisher during the 1920s, while he was working at Rothamsted Experimental Station, where agricultural research was in turn reshaped by Fisher’s methods. Analysis of variance and experimental design required new practices and instruments in field and laboratory research, and imposed a redistribution of expertise among statisticians, experimental scientists and the farm staff. On the other hand the use of statistical methods in agricultural science called for a systematization of information management and made computing an activity integral to the experimental research done at Rothamsted, permanently integrating the statisticians’ tools and expertise into the station research programme. Fisher’s statistical methods did not remain confined within agricultural research and by the end of the 1950s they had come to stay in psychology, sociology, education, chemistry, medicine, engineering, economics, quality control, just to mention a few of the disciplines which adopted them

Design and On-Orbit Operation of the Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator on the Hitomi Soft X-Ray Spectrometer Instrument

The Soft X-ray Spectrometer instrument on the Astro-H observatory contains a 6x6 array of x-ray microcalorimeters that is cooled to 50 mK by an adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR). The ADR consists of three stages in order to provide stable detector cooling using either a 1.2 K superfluid helium bath or a 4.5 K Joule-Thomson (JT) cryocooler as its heat sink. When liquid helium is present, two of the ADR's stages are used to single-shot cool the detectors while rejecting heat to the helium. After the helium is depleted, all three stages are used to continuously cool the helium tank (to about 1.5 K) and single-shot cool the detectors (to 50 mK), using the JT cryocooler as its heat sink. The Astro-H observatory, renamed Hitomi after its successful launch in February 2016, carried approximately 36 liters of helium into orbit. On day 5, the helium had cooled sufficiently (<1.4 K) to allow operation of the ADR. This paper describes the design, operation and on-orbit performance of the ADR, and the use of the ADR's heat rejection as a tool for mass gauging the helium tank