IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v7y2020i1d10.1057_s41599-020-00557-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From sociology of quantification to ethics of quantification

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Saltelli

    (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC))

  • Monica Fiore

    (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche)

Abstract

Quantifications are produced by several disciplinary houses in a myriad of different styles. The concerns about unethical use of algorithms, unintended consequences of metrics, as well as the warning about statistical and mathematical malpractices are all part of a general malaise, symptoms of our tight addiction to quantification. What problems are shared by all these instances of quantification? After reviewing existing concerns about different domains, the present perspective article illustrates the need and the urgency for an encompassing ethics of quantification. The difficulties to discipline the existing regime of numerification are addressed; obstacles and lock-ins are identified. Finally, indications for policies for different actors are suggested.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Saltelli & Monica Fiore, 2020. "From sociology of quantification to ethics of quantification," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-8, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:7:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-020-00557-0
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-020-00557-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-020-00557-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-020-00557-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John P A Ioannidis, 2005. "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(8), pages 1-1, August.
    2. Michael J. Zyphur & Dean C. Pierides, 2017. "Is Quantitative Research Ethical? Tools for Ethically Practicing, Evaluating, and Using Quantitative Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 1-16, June.
    3. W. Kip Viscusi, 2008. "The Flawed Hedonic Damages Measure of Compensation for Wrongful Death and Personal Injury," Journal of Forensic Economics, National Association of Forensic Economics, vol. 20(2), pages 113-135, October.
    4. Siddharth Sareen & Andrea Saltelli & Kjetil Rommetveit, 2020. "Ethics of quantification: illumination, obfuscation and performative legitimation," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-5, December.
    5. Jeroen P. Van Der Sluijs & Matthieu Craye & Silvio Funtowicz & Penny Kloprogge & Jerry Ravetz & James Risbey, 2005. "Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Measures of Uncertainty in Model‐Based Environmental Assessment: The NUSAP System," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(2), pages 481-492, April.
    6. Mirowski, Philip, 2011. "Science-Mart: Privatizing American Science," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674046467, Spring.
    7. Richard Owen & Phil Macnaghten & Jack Stilgoe, 2012. "Responsible research and innovation: From science in society to science for society, with society," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(6), pages 751-760, December.
    8. Sheila Jasanoff, 2007. "Technologies of humility," Nature, Nature, vol. 450(7166), pages 33-33, November.
    9. C. Glenn Begley & Lee M. Ellis, 2012. "Raise standards for preclinical cancer research," Nature, Nature, vol. 483(7391), pages 531-533, March.
    10. Andrea Saltelli, 2019. "A short comment on statistical versus mathematical modelling," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 10(1), pages 1-3, December.
    11. Samuele Lo Piano, 2020. "Ethical principles in machine learning and artificial intelligence: cases from the field and possible ways forward," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-7, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. SJ, Balaji & Babu, Suresh Chandra & Pal, Suresh, 2021. "Understanding Science and Policy Making in Agriculture: A Machine Learning Application for India," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315227, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Francesco Bogliacino & Rafael Charris & Camilo Gómez & Felipe Montealegre & Cristiano Codagnone, 2021. "Expert endorsement and the legitimacy of public policy. Evidence from Covid19 mitigation strategies," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3-4), pages 394-415, April.
    3. Joanna Sleigh & Shannon Hubbs & Alessandro Blasimme & Effy Vayena, 2024. "Can digital tools foster ethical deliberation?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Marta Kuc-Czarnecka & Magdalena Olczyk, 2020. "How ethics combine with big data: a bibliometric analysis," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-9, December.
    5. Shinichi Nakagawa & Edward R. Ivimey-Cook & Matthew J. Grainger & Rose E. O’Dea & Samantha Burke & Szymon M. Drobniak & Elliot Gould & Erin L. Macartney & April Robin Martinig & Kyle Morrison & Matthi, 2023. "Method Reporting with Initials for Transparency (MeRIT) promotes more granularity and accountability for author contributions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-5, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Samuele Lo Piano, 2020. "Ethical principles in machine learning and artificial intelligence: cases from the field and possible ways forward," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-7, December.
    2. Colin F. Camerer & Anna Dreber & Felix Holzmeister & Teck-Hua Ho & Jürgen Huber & Magnus Johannesson & Michael Kirchler & Gideon Nave & Brian A. Nosek & Thomas Pfeiffer & Adam Altmejd & Nick Buttrick , 2018. "Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(9), pages 637-644, September.
    3. Marlo M Vernon & E Andrew Balas & Shaher Momani, 2018. "Are university rankings useful to improve research? A systematic review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-15, March.
    4. Bernhard Voelkl & Lucile Vogt & Emily S Sena & Hanno Würbel, 2018. "Reproducibility of preclinical animal research improves with heterogeneity of study samples," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(2), pages 1-13, February.
    5. Esquivel-Sada, Daphne, 2022. "Responsible intellectual property rights? Untangling open-source biotech adherence to intellectual property rights through DIYbio," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    6. Ádám Kun, 2018. "Publish and Who Should Perish: You or Science?," Publications, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-16, April.
    7. van Aert, Robbie Cornelis Maria, 2018. "Dissertation R.C.M. van Aert," MetaArXiv eqhjd, Center for Open Science.
    8. Pellizzone, Anna & Allansdottir, Agnes & De Franco, Roberto & Muttoni, Giovanni & Manzella, Adele, 2015. "Exploring public engagement with geothermal energy in southern Italy: A case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1-11.
    9. Santiago Sanchez-Pages & Claudia Rodriguez-Ruiz & Enrique Turiegano, 2014. "Facial Masculinity: How the Choice of Measurement Method Enables to Detect Its Influence on Behaviour," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-10, November.
    10. Andrew D Higginson & Marcus R Munafò, 2016. "Current Incentives for Scientists Lead to Underpowered Studies with Erroneous Conclusions," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-14, November.
    11. Marta Kuc-Czarnecka & Samuele Lo Piano & Andrea Saltelli, 2020. "Quantitative Storytelling in the Making of a Composite Indicator," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 775-802, June.
    12. Jinzhou Li & Marloes H. Maathuis, 2021. "GGM knockoff filter: False discovery rate control for Gaussian graphical models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 83(3), pages 534-558, July.
    13. Mueller-Langer, Frank & Fecher, Benedikt & Harhoff, Dietmar & Wagner, Gert G., 2019. "Replication studies in economics—How many and which papers are chosen for replication, and why?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 62-83.
    14. Pangbourne, Kate & Mladenović, Miloš N. & Stead, Dominic & Milakis, Dimitris, 2020. "Questioning mobility as a service: Unanticipated implications for society and governance," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 35-49.
    15. Kathryn Oliver & Annette Boaz, 2019. "Transforming evidence for policy and practice: creating space for new conversations," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-10, December.
    16. Bettina Bert & Céline Heinl & Justyna Chmielewska & Franziska Schwarz & Barbara Grune & Andreas Hensel & Matthias Greiner & Gilbert Schönfelder, 2019. "Refining animal research: The Animal Study Registry," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(10), pages 1-12, October.
    17. Hajko, Vladimír, 2017. "The failure of Energy-Economy Nexus: A meta-analysis of 104 studies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 771-787.
    18. Oliver Braganza, 2020. "A simple model suggesting economically rational sample-size choice drives irreproducibility," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(3), pages 1-19, March.
    19. Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Page, Lionel & Dulleck, Uwe, 2015. "Promoting pro-social behavior with public statements of good intent," MPRA Paper 80072, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 May 2017.
    20. Richard McElreath & Paul E Smaldino, 2015. "Replication, Communication, and the Population Dynamics of Scientific Discovery," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(8), pages 1-16, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:7:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-020-00557-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.