Measurement, Realism and Objectivity: Essays on Measurement in the Social and Physical Sciences

357 Pages·1987·6.507 MB·English

by  John Forge (eds.)

MEASUREMENT, REALISM AND OBJECTIVITY
AUSTRALASIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
General Editor:
R. W. HOME University of Melbourne
Editorial Advisory Board
W. R. ALBURY, University of New South Wales
B. D. ELLIS, La Trobe University
L. A. FARRALL, Deakin University
F. R. JEVONS, Deakin University
R. JOHNSTON, UniversityofWollongong
H. E. LE GRAND, University of Melbourne
A. MUSGRAVE, University of Otago
D. R. OLDROYD, University of New South Wales
J. RONAYNE, University of New South Wales
J. J. C. SMART,AustralianNational University
VOLUME 5
MEASUREMENT,
REALISM AND
OBJECTIVITY
Essays on Measurement in the Social
and Physical Sciences
Edited by
JOHN FORGE
School of Science, Griffith University,
Queensland, Australia
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
A MEMBER OF THE KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP
DORDRECHT/BOSTON/LANCASTER/TOKYO
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Measurement, realism, and objectivity.
(Australasian studies in history and philosophy
of science ; v. 5)
Includes bibliographies and indexes.
1. Physical measurements. 2. Science-Philosophy.
3. Science-history. 4. Realism. 5. Objectivity.
I. Forge, lohn, 1946-- . II. Series.
QC39.M396 1987 530.1'6 87-26301
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-8238-9 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-3919-6
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-3919-6
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland.
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada
by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A.
In all other countries, sold and distributed
by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group,
P.o. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, Holland
All Rights Reserved
© 1987 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 15t edition 1987
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD vH
INTRODUCTION ix
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xvH
JAMES R. FLYNN I The Ontology ofIntelligence 1
HENRY KRIPS I Quantum Measurement and Bell's Theorem 41
S. O. FUNTOWICZ AND J. R. RAVETZ I Qualified Quantities:
Towards an Arithmetic of Real Experience 59
DA VID R. OLDROYD I Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and
Time: A Case Study in Problems of Coherence in the Mea
surement of Geological Time (The 'KBS' Tuff Controversy
and the Dating of Rocks in the Turkana Basin, East Kenya) 89
JOHN NORTON I Einstein, the Hole Argument and the Reality
of Space 153
IAN LOWE I Measurement and Objectivity: Some Problems of
Energy Technology 189
ROBERT McLAUGHLIN I Freudian Forces 207
CHRIS SWOYER I The Metaphysics of Measurement 235
JOHN FORGE IOn Ellis' Theory of Quantities 291
D. M. ARMSTRONG I Comments on Swoyer and Forge 311
BRIAN ELLIS I Comments on Forge and Swoyer 319
INDEX OF NAMES 327
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 333
FOREWORD
The institutionalization of History and Philosophy of Science as a
distinct field of scholarly endeavour began comparatively early -
though not always under that name - in the Australasian region. An
initial lecturing appointment was made at the University of Melbourne
immediately after the Second World War, in 1946, and other appoint
ments followed as the subject underwent an expansion during the
1950s and 1960s similar to that which took place in other parts of
the world. Today there are major Departments at the University of
Melbourne, the University of New South Wales and the University of
Wollongong, and smaller groups active in many other parts of Australia
and in New Zealand.
"Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science" aims to
provide a distinctive publication outlet for Australian and New Zealand
scholars working in the general area of history, philosophy and social
studies of science. Each volume comprises a group of essays on a
connected theme, edited by an Australian or a New Zealander with
special expertise in that particular area. Papers address general issues,
however, rather than local ones; parochial topics are avoided. Further
more, though in each volume a majority of the contributors is from
Australia or New Zealand, contributions from elsewhere are by no
means ruled out. Quite the reverse, in fact - they are actively encour
aged wherever appropriate to the balance of the volume in question.
R. W. HOME
General Editor
Australasian Studies in History
and Philosophy ofS cience
vii
INTRODUCTION
The essays in this volume are concerned more or less directly with the
theory and practice of measurement. As a theme or organising principle
for the collection, I suggested to contributors that they might explore
some of the implications of the theory and practice of measurement for
the realist interpretation of science and for the claim that scientific
knowledge is objective, or, conversely, to consider some of the ways the
realist interpretation and the claim that scientific knowledge is objective
might influence our ideas about measurement. In other words one
could say that the volume focusses on the area of intersection of the
topic of measurement and the topics of realism and objectivity. My aim
has been not so much to achieve a consensus on a narrow range of
issues but to produce a collection of papers which reflect the interests
and concerns of the Australasian community of History and Philosophy
of Science. While this aim is not necessarily incompatible with that of
achieving consensus, it would, in view of the richness and diversity of
the activities of those who belong to the Australasian H.P.S. com
munity, be somewhat surprising if complete agreement were reached.
The unity of the present volume is thus supplied more by its overall
theme rather than by its substantive conclusions. In the remainder of
this introduction I shall say something about each paper, not necessarily
taking them in the order which they appear in the volume, and indicate
some of the points of agreement between them.
Jim Flynn's "The Ontology of Intelligence" is the first of two papers
about psychology, and it deals specifically with intelligence testing in
relation to the construct g, or general intelligence, of the Spearman
Jensen theory. On the first page of his paper, Flynn asserts that the con
cept of intelligence only has explanatory power if it can be measured,
and hence the question is raised as to whether IQ tests do actually
measure intelligence. This leads him to a careful and detailed discussion
of what it is to measure intelligence, and then to consider the conditions
under which the measurable quantity or construct g can be interpreted
realistically. Flynn sets out four conditions, or assertions as he calls
them, under which we would be justified in taking g to be real. These
ix
x INTRODUCTION
conditions are quite stringent. Not only must g have a physiological
subs~ratum, it must play a causal role in the world, which, for Flynn,
amounts to its explanatory significance. The conditions for the realist
construal of g are stated at roughly the half-way point of the essay.
The remainder is taken up with an assessment of the Spearman
Jensen theory in the light of these conditions. Flynn concludes that the
theory, though not without its strengths, requires modification in several
respects.
The second of the two papers on psychology is Robert McLaughlin's
"Freudian Forces". McLaughlin, unlike Flynn, is not concerned with
any current theory of psychology, but rather with the historical question
of the tenor of Freud's metapsychology. In particular, he is interested in
the status of certain hypotheses in which Freud expresses himself in
terms of ''force'', "energy", "resistance" and other such mechanical
concepts. In considering how we should interpret such expressions,
McLaughlin distinguishes between several different varieties of realism,
and identifies realism in contrast to instrumentalism as the variety at
issue. The question, then, is whether 'Freudian forces' are to be taken as
instruments of prediction, after the manner of the typical nineteenth
century interpretations of force in physics, or as real entities. One might
suppose that if it were possible to assign values to these entities by well
defined procedures of measurement, then this would be enough for a
realist interpretation. McLaughlin denies this, and demonstrates that
values can be assigned to so-called intervening variables which by
definition are instruments of prediction. As with Flynn, it is the causal
explanatory role played by an entity or construct which is said to be the
basis of any realist construal. McLaughlin goes further than Flynn in
this regard and spells out what it is for something to have a causal
explanatory role by making use of Salmon's account of the causal
structure of the world.
The essays of Henry Krips and John Norton are concerned with
some of the implications for measurement of, respectively, quantum
mechanics and general relativity. Both papers contain some techni
calities, but in neither case are the conclusions inaccessible to those
unfamiliar with the mathematical apparatus employed.
The upshot of Krips' paper "Quantum Measurement and Bell's
Theorem" is that we must give up the principle that for any physical
system S, quantity Q and time t, there always exists a value mv( Q, S, t)
which S would exhibit for Q if only a measurement were performed on
INTRODUCTION xi
S at t. In other words, we must renounce the idea that physical systems
exhibit quantities to some definite degree at all times. Krips states that
this assumption has been taken as an underlying principle of classical
physics. Why must it be given up? In the first section of his paper,
Krips proves that the principle is incompatible with standard quantum
mechanics in conjunction with the locality postulate which states that
there are no faster than light causal influences. This reasoning is typical
of discussions that involve Bell's theorem. The conclusion of such a
discussion is typically that we are presented with a dilemma or. tri
lemma: either standard quantum mechanics must be renounced or
locality or . . . . Most philosophers of science, Krips included, do not
consider giving up quantum mechanics or locality. Hence in this case it
is the above-mentioned principle that must be relinquished. Krips does
not think that this is a great loss since it only amounts to abandoning
determinism. The classical metaphysician may not agree.
Those readers familiar with operationism, the doctrine that quan
tities are nothing more than sets of measuring operations, may be aware
that certain remarks made by Einstein in his 1905 paper on special
relativity were in part responsible for this doctrine. Bridgman, who
defended this view of quantities in his Logic of Modern Physics,
believed that Einstein's paper exemplified operationism. Norton in
"Einstein, the Hole Argument and the Reality of Space" is concerned,
not with the special theory of relativity, but with the general theory. In
the development of this theory also, Einstein's pronouncements have
some significance for our ideas about measurement. Norton quotes
passages from Einstein in which he speaks of the requirements of his
theory as robbing space and time of 'objective reality' and of the
reference system (c o-ordinate system) as signifying 'nothing real'. If so,
what are we measuring when we make measurements of lengths with
measuring rods and time intervals with clocks, and what do co-ordinate
systems refer to? Subjective impressions, phenomenal objects or what?
Norton, however, wants to argue against the view that Einstein was
in fact working out the implications for space and time of the non
realist position of philosophers like Mach and Schlick. By a careful
study of Einstein's rendering of two crucial arguments, the point-co
incidence argument and the hole argument, Norton concludes that
Einstein denied the substantivalist account of space and time, not the
realist account. The substantivalist believes that space and time exist
independently of any fields, such as the gravitational field. Norton
xii INTRODUCTION
conjectures that perhaps Einstein was an antisubstantivalist all along,
and that his apparently anti-realist remarks of 1913-1916 should be
construed as denying the existence of space and time independently of
the fields they contain. Whatever Einstein's intentions, his arguments as
reconstructed by Norton are telling only against the substantivalist.
Measurement, then, is not to be conceived as reporting anything about
spatial properties of objects nor the duration of events that are not
determined to some extent by the nature of the fields pervading space
and time. The passage from Einstein quoted in section 6 of Norton's
paper makes this explicit: space has no metrical properties without the
gravitational field. With regard to our understanding of Einstein, it
would seem that the situation here resembles that to which I referred
in connection with operationism: we should look carefully at what
Einstein did, not at what he said - which is in fact his own advice to
his readers!
There are three papers in the present volume that deal explicitly with
questions about the objectivity of statements about measured values.
Ian Lowe in "Measurement and Objectivity: Some Problems in Energy
Technology" takes the most radical line on the issues. He presents a
number of real-life examples in which quite outrageous claims are made
on the basis of supposedly objective measurements, such as those
concerning the safety of certain methods of disposing of nuclear waste.
Lowe rejects the suggestion that we distinguish his examples as belong
ing to the sphere which Weinberg calls trans-science and hence deny
that they are representative of actual scientific practice. He proposes
that the lack of objectivity of measurements evident in his examples
drawn from the policy sciences infects the natural sciences also. But this
is not, I think, a conclusion that would be accepted without qualifica
tion by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerry Ravetz, nor would it be accepted by
David Oldroyd.
"Qualified Quantities: Towards an Arithmetic of Real Experience" is
co-authored by Funtowicz and Ravetz. Ravetz and Funtowicz agree
with Lowe in questioning the objectivity of statements that attribute
values to quantities, particularly in the context of the policy sciences.
They propose a schema which they refer to by the acronym NUSAP,
which stands for number, unit, spread, assessment and pedigree, in
terms of which to express quantitative information. However, I take it
that conformity with the dictates of the schema would produce objec
tive knowledge. Turning to the detail of the schema, the ideas of