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26 January 2007

Statistical porridge and other influences on the American public

In this past Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, Scott Stossel covers a book by Sarah E. Igo, a professor in the history department at the University of Pennsylvania. The Averaged American – which I haven’t read but plan to pick up soon – discusses how the development of statistical measurement after World War I impacted not only social science, but also, well, the average American. According to the review, Igo argues that statistical groundbreakers like the Gallup poll and the Kinsey reports created a societal self-awareness that hadn’t existed before.

What struck me, though, was the reviewer’s closing comment. Stossel writes, “Even as we have moved toward ever-finer calibrations of statistical measurement, the knowledge that social science can produce is, in the end, limited. Is the statistical average rendered by pollsters the distillation of America? Or its grinding down into porridge? For all of the hunger Americans have always expressed for cold, hard, data about who we are, literary ways of knowing may be profounder than statistical ones.”

Keep in mind that these words come from a literary person immersed in the literary world (specifically, Stossel is the managing editor of The Atlantic Monthly ) and should be understood in context. However, I hope that Stossel and the average American see the value of cold, hard, data handled well. I also think that we as social scientists and statisticians should accept his challenge to keep the porridge limited, the ideas unlimited, and our impact on the national consciousness profound! And maybe we should be a little offended, too.

Posted by Cassandra Wolos at January 26, 2007 9:30 AM

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Posted by: Mike Anderson at January 26, 2007 1:18 AM

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