Statistical Utopianism in an Age of Aristocratic Efficiency
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3924801 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Theodore M Porter (University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author), Theodore Porter |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Pages | 210-227 |
| Publication date | 2002-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Osiris (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0369-7827 • E-ISSN: 1933-8287 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/649364 |
| PMID | 12385323 |
| OpenAlex | W2070642230 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
The modern history of science is commonly associated with an inexorable move toward increasing specialization and, perhaps, a proliferation of expert discourses at the expense of public discourse. This paper concerns the standing of science as a basis for public authority in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain, and suggests that, in relation to the political order, this standing remained tenuous. These themes are exemplified by the career of Karl Pearson, founder of the modern school of mathematical statistics and something of a social visionary. Like Huxley and other scientific naturalists, Pearson wished to incorporate science into a reinvigorated "general culture" and in this way to reshape an elite. Statistics, seemingly the archetypal form of specialist expertise, was conceived as an almost utopian program to advance intelligence and mortality in what he sometimes referred to as a new aristocracy
Elite · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Philosophy and History of Science
| Citations per year | 0.14 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2005 - 2014 (10) |
| Highly cited | No |