Measurement Across the Sciences. Developing a Shared Concept System for Measurement

340 Pages·2021·7.059 MB·English

by  Luca Mari, Mark Wilson, Andrew Maul

Springer Series in Measurement Science and Technology
Luca Mari
Mark Wilson
Andrew Maul
Measurement
Across
the Sciences
Developing a Shared Concept System
for Measurement
Second Edition
Springer Series in Measurement Science
and Technology
Series Editors
Markys G. Cain, Electrosciences Ltd., Farnham, Surrey, UK
Giovanni Battista Rossi, DIMEC Laboratorio di Misure, Universita degli Studi di
Genova, Genova, Italy
Jirí Tesarˇ, Czech Metrology Institute, Prague, Czech Republic
Marijn van Veghel, VSL Dutch Metrology Institute, Delft, Zuid-Holland,
The Netherlands
Kyung-Young Jhang, School of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University,
Seoul, Korea (Republic of)
The Springer Series in Measurement Science and Technology comprehensively
covers the science and technology of measurement, addressing all aspects of the
subject from the fundamental principles through to the state-of-the-art in applied
and industrial metrology, as well as in the social sciences. Volumes published in the
series cover theoretical developments, experimental techniques and measurement
best practice, devices and technology, data analysis, uncertainty, and standards,
with application to physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering and the life
and social sciences.

· ·
Luca Mari Mark Wilson Andrew Maul
Measurement Across
the Sciences
Developing a Shared Concept System for
Measurement
Second Edition
Luca Mari Mark Wilson
School of Industrial Engineering Berkeley School of Education
Università Cattaneo—LIUC University of California
Castellanza, Varese, Italy Berkeley, CA, USA
Andrew Maul
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA, USA
ISSN 2198-7807 ISSN 2198-7815 (electronic)
Springer Series in Measurement Science and Technology
ISBN 978-3-031-22447-8 ISBN 978-3-031-22448-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22448-5
1st edition: © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
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Foreword by Roman Z. Morawski
The idea of measurement standards seems to be as old as our civilization. The docu-
mented history of measurements started ca. 3000 years ago in Mesopotamia, Egypt,
and China, where the needs related to the land management and construction of
buildings motivated the invention of the first standards of length, area, volume, and
weight, which next—for centuries—played a very important role in trade, commerce,
government, and even religion. The mythical history of measurement is much longer:
according to a first-century Romano-Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus, it was
Biblical Cain who invented weights and measures. After having killed his brother
Abel, he went on to commit many other sins, including this terrible innovation “that
changed a world of innocent and noble simplicity, in which people had hitherto lived
without such systems, into one forever filled with dishonesty”.1 Paradoxically, the
scientists of the 21st century are more likely to agree with Titus Flavius Josephus
than their predecessors because they have fallen prey to bureaucratic systems of
research evaluation based on bibliometric indicators, allegedly being measures of
research quality…
The authors of the book Measurement Across the Sciences have made an attempt to
identify a set of basic conditions necessary for measurement, which could be accept-
able for most researchers and practitioners active in various areas of measurement
application, including both physics and experimental psychology. They have tried,
moreover, to find some complementary conditions which are sufficient for correct
characterization of measurement. In this way, they have contributed to the endeavors
of great methodological significance, viz. to the endeavors aimed at drawing a demar-
cation line between measurements and measurement-like operations. This is a chal-
lenge comparable with that of the demarcation problem in the philosophy of science,
1 Cited after: Kula, W. (1986). Measures and Men. Princeton (NJ, USA): Princeton University Press
(translated from Polish by R. Szreter), p. 3.
v
vi ForewordbyRomanZ.Morawski
i.e., the problem of criteria for distinguishing science from pseudo-science. More-
over, this seems to be an urgent task in the times when the creative minds of techno-
scientific milieus are exposed to the influence of simplistic views which are convinc-
ingly presented in such books as How to Measure Anything...2 offering five-steps
procedures for defining new measurands and new measurement methods for busi-
ness applications. In light of those guidelines, what was considered a joke 50 years
ago may become today a serious business approach to measurement. One of such
jokes, most frequently repeated at that time by the students of measurement science,
went as follows:
Examiner: “How to measure the height of the university building using a
barometer?”
Student: “By offering this barometer to the administrator in exchange for the
access to the technical documentation of the building”.
Measurements, considered to be the most reliable sources of information, are
omnipresent in the life of information society which, by definition, is intensively and
extensively involved in the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation, and integra-
tion of information. The reliable measurement data are indispensable for decision-
making processes, especially if the latter are supported by IT tools. The demand for
such data appears not only in a research laboratory, but also on a production line and in
a hospital. The growing demand for such data may be observed in various institutions
of public administration, education, and transportation. Unlike in the 19th century,
the institutions of business and bureaucratic management are the main driving forces
behind the avalanche generation of new measurands, especially so-called perfor-
mance indicators, and the corresponding methodologies for their evaluation. Despite
the socio-economic damages implied by the reckless application of those indicators
for decision-making, despite the common awareness of the so-called Campbell’s
law3 and Goodhart’s law,4 their use is not getting less frequent or more prudent. The
reasons are obvious:
• they are claimed to be more objective than experts’ opinions;
• they may be easily “digested” by the algorithmic procedures supporting the
decision-making processes;
• once agreed by the decision-making bodies, they play the role of excuse for
pragmatically or morally wrong decisions;
• they effectively replace intellectual qualifications of the decision-makers.
2 D. W. Hubbard, (2014). How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business.
Hoboken (NJ, USA): John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (3rd edition). D. W. Hubbard, & Seiersen, R. (2016).
How to measure anything in cybersecurity risk. Hoboken (NJ, USA): John Wiley & Sons.
3 “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it
will be to corruption pressures, and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes
it is intended to monitor”. (Cited after en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell’s_law [as of January 2023]).
4 “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. (Cited after en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Goodhart’s_law [as of January 2023]).
ForewordbyRomanZ.Morawski vii
Another driving force of measurement massification is self-tracking biometrics,
a growing interest in acquisition of data related to different aspects of our personal
life: monitoring of heart condition, mood, air quality. This trend toward self-tracking
through measurement technology—which appears under the names of body hacking,
self-quantifying or lifelogging—is motivated by the promise of a healthier, longer
and better life. This promise cannot be fulfilled without rational unification of hetero-
geneous measurements it relies upon. The book Measurement Across the Sciences is
about such a unification although the idea of self-quantifying does not appear there.
Pantometry, i.e., an obsessive desire to measure everything, is another sociological
phenomenon—provoked by extensive availability of measurement tools of various
quality—which is creating enormous demand for conceptual unification of measure-
ments across various domains of quantities, indicators, and measures. Enough to say
that the global market of sensors is expected to grow by ca. 9% between 2020 and
2025.5
The authors of the book Measurement Across the Sciences—not succumbing to
the temptation of white-black normativeness—provide a very pragmatic answer to a
frequently asked question about “bad measurement” by defining it as “not sufficiently
objective and intersubjective according to the given purposes of the measurement”
(Sect. 7.4.4). It should be noticed, however, that this statement makes sense provided
the operation under consideration satisfies at least basic conditions necessary for
measurement, identified in the book. Although the title of the book seems to suggest
that its contents apply exclusively to measurements in sciences, it actually addresses
not only the measurement tools and methodologies dedicated to scientific research,
but every instance of measurement which satisfies those basic necessary conditions.
One might even risk a hypothesis that the socio-economic impact of the book will
be significantly stronger outside of that restricted area—in various domains of engi-
neering, medicine, agriculture, food industry, etc.—where the costs of erroneous
decisions implied by ill-defined measurements may be very high.
The book is about philosophical and logical foundations of measurement science.
Philosophy is a never-ending discourse on the key assumptions of ontological and
epistemic nature, and logic is about systematically deriving conclusions from those
assumptions. The authors have clearly cut preferences if those assumptions are
concerned, but—being aware that they can be justified only a posteriori by the distant
logical consequences—neither ignore nor oppugn the alternative approaches and
views. This is important if the book is to be received not only by philosophers of
science—who are inclined to invest enormous energy in the unproductive realism–
antirealism debates—but also by creative measurement practitioners who are inter-
ested in harmonization of various paradigms of measurement, developed, and applied
in various domains of science and technology. There is such a need, there is such
an expectation in the milieus which have to deal with complex systems integrating
measurement data representative of the objects, phenomena and events of various
5 Mordor Intelligence: Sensors Market—Growth, Trends, and Forecast (2020–2025), www.mordor
intelligence.com/industry-reports/global-sensors-market [as of July 20, 2020].
viii ForewordbyRomanZ.Morawski
nature: physical, chemical, biological, psychological, etc. The book is committed
to meeting those needs and expectations. Unlike self-help guides How to Measure
Anything…, it is not offering ready-for-use solutions, but rather showing the patterns
of thinking that could lead to practical solutions of specific classes of problems.
The authors of the book Measurement Across the Sciences are affiliated at different
institutions and represent complementary fields of expertise related to measurement
science: Dr. Luca Mari is Professor of Measurement Science at Università Carlo
Cattaneo (Castellanza, Italy), Dr. Mark R. Wilson is Professor of Educational Statis-
tics and Measurement at University of California (Berkeley, USA), and Dr. Andrew
Maul is Associate Professor of Education Science and Psychometrics at Univer-
sity of California (Santa Barbara, USA). Before writing this book, they have been
involved in a long-term collaboration aimed at making convergent the methodologies
of measuring physical and non-physical quantities. Their efforts have had not only
scientific but also organizational dimensions: through their efforts, measurements
in social sciences have been incorporated into the program of activity of the Inter-
national Measurement Confederation (IMEKO). Based on the experience of their
fruitful collaboration, these highly respected scholars have produced a major work
that will be for years to come a central text in measurement science—the text of impor-
tance for measurement philosophers, measurement theoreticians and measurement
practitioners looking for creative solutions of interdisciplinary problems.
Roman Z. Morawski, Ph.D., D.Sc.
Professor of Measurement Science
Warsaw University of Technology
Warsaw, Poland