The Politics of Large Numbers: A History of Statistical Reasoning

381 Pages·2015·5.69 MB·English

by  Alain Desrosieres

The Politics
of Large Numbers
A H istory of Statistical Reasoninc
Alain Desrosieres
Translated by Camille Nuish

The Politics of
Large Numbers
A History of Statistical
Reasoning
Alain Desrosieres
TRANSLATED BY CAMILLE NAISH
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England
Copyright © 1998 by thc President and Fellows of Harvard Collcgc
All rights reserved
Printed in the Unitcd States of America
Originally published as La politique desgrands nombres: Histoire de la mtson
stntistique, © Editions La Decouverte, Paris, 1993.
Published with the assistancc of thc French Ministry of Culturc.
This book has been digitally reprintcd. Thc content remains identical to that
of prcvious printings
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicatiοn Data
Dcsrosieres, Alain.
[Politique des grands nombres. English]
Thc politics of large numbers : a history of statistical reasoning
/ Alain Desrosieres : translated by Camille Naish.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-674-68932-1 (alk. paper)
1. Statistics—Flistory. 2. Statistical services—History.
I. Title.
HA19.D4713 1998
519.5Ό9—dc21 98-3199
Το the memory of Micbael Pollak,
whose moral rip/or and work
on thepolitics of the social sciences
have profoundly influenced this book

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Arguing from Social Facts 1
1 Prefects and Geometers 16
2 Judges and Astronomers 45
3 Averages and the Realism of Aggregates 67
4 Corrđation and the Realism of Causes 103
5 Statistics and the State:
France and Great Britain 147
6 Statistics and the State:
Germany and the United States 178
7 The Part for the Whole:
Monographs or Representative Samplings 210
8 Classifying and Encoding 236
9 Modeling and Adjusting 279
Conclusion: Disputing the Indisputable 323
Notes 339
References 343
Index 359

Acknowledgments
One of the sources of this book has been a long-standing interest in the social
conditions under which information on the social world is produced, an inter-
est kindled by the teachings of Pierre Bourdieu. It owes much to conversadons
through the years with statisticians, demographers, and economists (Joelle
Affichard, Michel Armatte, Denis Bayart, Annie Cot, Jean-Jacques Droesbekc,
Fransois Eymard-Duvernay, Annie Fouquet, Michel Gollac, Fran£ois Hćran, Jac-
ques Magaud, Maryse Marpsat, Pascal Mazodier, Robert Salais, Philippe Tassi,
Michel Volle, Elisabeth Zucker); with historians and philosophers (Marie-Noellc
Bourguet, Stephane Callens, Fransois Ewald, Anne Fagot-Largeault, Frar^ois
Fourquet, Bernard Lecuyer, Jean-Claude and Michelle Perrot); and also with
certain British, German, and American specialists, whose advice has been most
valuable (Margo Anderson, Martin Bulmer, Lorraine Daston, Gerd Gigercnzer,
Ian Hacking, Donald MacKenzie, Mary Morgan, Ted Porter, Stephen Stiglcr,
Simon Szreter). It has also benefited from a seminar on thc history of probabilities
and statistics, organized at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes (EHESS) in Paris by Marc
Barbut, Bernard Bru, and Ernest Coumet. The sociology-of-science perspective
was influenced by work carried out in the Groupe de Sociologie Politique ct
Morale (EFiESS) with Luc Boltanski, Nicolas Dodier, Michael Pollak (who died in
1992), and Laurent Thevenot, whose ideas on statistical formatting were essen-
tial—as was the research undertaken at the Centre de Sociologie dc l’Innovation
de l’Ecolc des Mincs (Michel Callon and Bruno Latour). Finally, this book could
not have been written without the warm welcome and assistance provided by
the research department at the Institut Nadonal de la Statistique ct des Etudes
Economiques (INSEE), thc Frcnch statistical office. The pertincnt criticisms ex-
pressed by members of this department—especially by Francis Kramarz—were
extremely helpful. I am also indebted to Elisabeth Garcia for her painstaking work
in preparing the manuscript, with the hclp of Dominique d’Humiercs.