La política de los grandes números. Historia de la razón estadística

by Alain Desrosières, MÓNICA SILVA (Translator)

En este estudio de la historia de la estadística, que comienza con la teoría de la probabilidad en el siglo XVII, Alain Desrosières muestra cómo la evolución de la estadística moderna ha estado indisolublemente ligada al conocimiento y al poder de los gobiernos. Traza la compleja reciprocidad entre los gobiernos modernos y los artefactos matemáticos que dictan los deberes del estado y miden sus éxitos.

Genres: History, Science, Politics, Economics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Sociology

416 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1993

Reviews

[Yu Zhou · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is not easy to review this book, because of its amazing depth, width and sophistication. Unlike many other history books on engineering merits of statistical models from famous mathematicians/statisticians, The Politics of Large Numbers speaks to the philosophical reasoning of statistics and talks about the historical context in which statistical reasonings gradually evolved into what we know today. It amazes me how much philosophical reasonings were given to the everyday statistics instruments like average, correlation, sampling and classification, beyond just the math formula defining these instruments. This book is a masterpiece historian tale of statistical reasoning that deserves data practitioners' attention. I will revisit this book in the future, because I will learn new things from reading it again and again. This book is not so easy to follow and understand through.

[Synaps · Rating 5 out of 5]

Statistics derive not just etymologically from the state: The expansion of quantitative measurement tools is intimately bound up with the emergence of modern power structures. To understand public policy today, we must dive back into how societies were constructed numerically.

[Martynas · Rating 4 out of 5]

very in depth. amazing perspective on statistics