Lectures / 12/11/2009 7:30 pm
Guest Lecture
How statistics and other numbers gain our trust only to disappoint it
Not a day passes on which we are not bombarded with numbers and statistics purporting to assist us in gauging the bodily or mental state we are in, the condition and behaviour of others and the “state of the nation”. The lecture aims to examine what these indices really tell us about what they claim to have measured – and what they conceal.
A series of lectures organized by Institut für Soziologie/Abt. für Theoretische Soziologie und Sozialanalysen der Johannes Kepler Universität Linz in collaboration with Linz 2009 European Capital of Culture in the Kepler Salon.
Curated by B. Aulenbacher, U. Fuchs, S. Keller, M. Ziegler
Bibliography:
- Theodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers. The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, Princeton, NJ 1996.
