The history of quantification and objectivity in the social sciences

Abstract

How can we account for the triumph of quantitative methodology in contemporary social sciences? This article reviews several historical works on the use of quantification in the pursuit of objectivity. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, objectivity was increasingly valued due to the absence of an elite culture, increasing anonymity, and the rise of pseudosciences. Before and during World War I, financial and governmental pressures intensified the movement toward objectivity and quantification. Quantification became almost mandatory as a response to World War II and Cold War conditions of mistrust and disunity. In the next decades, research findings started to circulate across oceans and continents and quantification served international communication very well. During the 1980s, the discussed challenges were no longer evident and the 1990s were characterized by continuous argument over the arbitrariness of quantitative decision making. Since then, there have been few reform, and roughly the same criticism applies to current statistical use. One can conclude that quantification has served the demands of social scientists for transparency, neutrality, and communicability, but in order to advance, social scientists should re-evaluate their own critical and creative mind.