Science Outside the Laboratory: Measurement in Field Science and Economics - Hardcover

In Science Outside the Laboratory, Marcel Boumans addresses the less familiar of science's Janus faces-not the realm of detached investigation aimed at eternal truth, but the sources of our understanding for our most urgent quotidian concerns. How can science provide reliable numbers to support decision-making in a messy world? Drawing on a deep well of historical knowledge, Boumans explores the parts of science that are too often taken for granted-quantification, measurement, and observation-and the problems of extracting reliable conclusions from uncertain information. This important book should be read by historians, philosophers, and scientific practitioners alike. (Kevin D. Hoover, Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Duke University)

The conduct of most of social science occurs outside the laboratory. Such studies in field science explore phenomena that cannot for practical, technical, or ethical reasons be explored under controlled conditions. These phenomena cannot be fully isolated from their environment or investigated by manipulation or intervention. Yet measurement, including rigorous or clinical measurement, does provide analysts with a sound basis for discerning what occurs under field conditions, and why.

Science Outside the Laboratory explores the state of measurement theory, its reliability, and the role expert judgment plays in field investigations from the perspective of the philosophy of science. Its discussion of the problems of passive observation, the calculus of observation, the two-model problem, and model-based consensus uses illustrations drawn primarily from economics. The treatment clarifies the extent to which measurement provides valid information about objects and events in field sciences, but also has implications for measurement in the laboratory.