Does Measurement Measure Up?: How Numbers Reveal and Conceal the Truth

by John M. Henshaw

A critical perspective of how measurements have come to affect our lives―from reasonable doubt to No Child Left Behind. There was once a time when we could not measure sound, color, blood pressure, or even time. We now find ourselves in the throes of a measurement revolution, from the laboratory to the sports arena, from the classroom to the courtroom, from a strand of DNA to the far reaches of outer space. Measurement controls our lives at work, at school, at home, and even at play. But does all this measurement really measure up? Here, John Henshaw examines the ways in which measurement makes sense or creates nonsense. Henshaw tells the controversial story of intelligence measurement from Plato to Binet to the early days of the SAT to today's super-quantified world of No Child Left Behind. He clears away the fog on issues of measurement in the environment, such as global warming, hurricanes, and tsunamis, and in the world of computers, from digital photos to MRI to the ballot systems used in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. From cycling and car racing to baseball, tennis, and track-and-field, he chronicles the ever-growing role of measurement in sports, raising important questions about performance and the folly of comparing today's athletes to yesterday's records. We can't quite measure everything, at least not yet. What could be more difficult to quantify than reasonable doubt? However, even our justice system is yielding to the measurement revolution with new forensic technologies such as DNA fingerprinting. As we evolve from unquantified ignorance to an imperfect but everpresent state of measured awareness, Henshaw gives us a critical perspective from which we can "measure up" the measurements that have come to affect our lives so greatly.

Genres: Mathematics

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't wait for the half-star rating system to kick in, because this would be a perfect example of a book I'd like to give 3.5 stars to.

John Henshaw is an engineering professor at the University of Tulsa. It's easiest first to say what this book is not: It is not a philosophical inquiry into the potential and shortcomings of measurement, although you get a lot of that anecdotally along the way; and it is not yet another screed about America's innumeracy, although he makes a brief reference to that at the end.

This book mainly is a cook's tour of all the ways in which the modern evolution of measurement has transformed our lives. Henshaw makes pit stops in the fields of business, sports, intelligence testing, global warming, computerized measurement and even the fuzziness of defining mental illness, examining how the growth of sophisticated measurements either has transformed these areas or given rise to sometimes confusing debates about what is real and what isn't (see global warming).

His chapter on the shortcomings of intelligence testing and its history are worth the price of the book. One factoid I hadn't known is that Alfred Binet, the inventor of the IQ measurement, never intended it to be used to rank those who were normal or above normal, but simply to screen for those who needed special educational help. In fact, Binet might not even have believed that most of intelligence was inherited, although later advocates of his testing most certainly did.

Henshaw's writing style is a bit academic and a wee bit repetitive, but I think he made an honest effort to take the passion of his life and translate it into a solid overview for interested lay readers. There are no mind-numbing charts or formulas included, just a few pithy graphics, such as the famous "hockey stick" graph showing the sudden spike in average global temperatures in recent years.

Although Henshaw clearly believes that in most cases, to be able to measure something precisely is better than not being able to, he reminds readers at the end of the book that it is important to know when to pay attention to measurements and when not to -- to be the master of numbers and not their slave -- and also just as important not to create numbers to prove a point you already wanted to make.

Wise words from a pithy book.

[Victor]

Not so dry due to nice voice in the writing, but the examples are shallow and the book is a little out of date, 16 years, through no fault of its own. Having a chapter on climate change in a 2006 book was a look at a different time.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great set of ideas and good examples.
The section on DNA was a little long and I was disappointed with the final chapter. The book started to feel scattered as a reached the end.

But I really enjoyed all the detailed examples and practical applications.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was written by a professor that I know from the University of Tulsa. Not a bad book about numbers and how they can be manipulated.

[Jvetrone]

insightful fun to skim around