During the last two centuries, the way economic science is done has changed radically: it has become a social science based on mathematical models in place of words. This book describes and analyses that change both historically and philosophically using a series of case studies to illuminate the nature and the implications of these changes. In format, it offers a tourist guide to economics by focusing chapters on specific models, explaining how economists create them and how they reason with them. It is not a technical book; it is written for the intelligent person who wants to understand how economics works from the inside out. This book will be of interest to economists and science studies scholars (historians, sociologists and philosophers of science). But it also aims at a wider readership in the public intellectual sphere, building on the current interest in all things economic, and in the recent failure of the so-called economic model, which has shaped our beliefs and the world we live in."

Models as Mediators discusses the ways in which models function in modern science, particularly in the fields of physics and economics. Models play a variety of roles in the sciences: they are used in the development, exploration and application of theories and in measurement methods. They also provide a mechanism for using scientific concepts and principles to intervene in the world. The editors provide a framework that covers the construction and function of scientific models, and explore the ways in which they enable us to learn about both theories and the world. The contributors to the volume offer their own individual theoretical perspectives and cover a wide range of examples of modeling. These papers provide ideal case study material for exploring both the concepts and typical elements of modeling methods, using analytical approaches from the domains of philosophy and history of science.

Why write about facts? Facts are everywhere. They litter the utterances of public life as much as the private conversations of individuals. They frequent the humanities and the sciences in equal measure. But their very ubiquity tells us not only why it is difficult to form general but sensible answers in response to seemingly simple questions about facts, but also why it is important to do so. This book discusses how facts travel, and when and why they sometimes travel well enough to acquire a life of their own. Whether or not facts travel in this manner depends not only on their character and ability to play useful roles elsewhere, but also on the labels, packaging, vehicles, and company that take them across difficult terrains and over disciplinary boundaries. These diverse stories of traveling facts, ranging from architecture to nanotechnology and from romance fiction to climate science, change the way we see the nature of facts. Facts are far from the bland and rather boring but useful objects that scientists and humanists produce and fit together to make narratives, arguments, and evidence. Rather, their extraordinary abilities to travel well and to fly flags of many different colors in the process shows when, how, and why facts can be used to build further knowledge beyond and away from their sites of original production and intended use.

A splendid - and necessary - publication...a great resource Iain Sinclair Charles Booth's landmark survey of life in late-19th-century London, published for the first time in one volume. In the late nineteenth century, Charles Booth's landmark social and economic survey found that 35 percent of Londoners were living in abject poverty. Booth's team of social investigators interviewed Londoners from all walks of life, recording their comments, together with their own unrestrained remarks and statistical information, in 450 notebooks. Their findings formed the basis of Booth's colour-coded social mapping (from vicious and semi-criminal to wealthy) and his seventeen-volume survey Inquiry into the Life and Labour of the People of London, 1886-1903. Organized into six geographical sections, Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps presents the hand-colored preparatory and printed social mapping of London. Accompanying the maps are reproductions of pages from the original notebooks, containing anecdotes and observations too judgmental for Booth to include in his final published survey. An introduction by professor Mary S. Morgan clarifies the aims and methodology of Booth's survey and six themed essays contextualize the the survey's findings, accompanied by evocative period photographs. Providing insights into the minutia of everyday life viewed through the lens of inhabitants of every trade, class, creed, and nationality, Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps brings to life the diversity and dynamism of late nineteenth-century London.

In this compelling 1995 book, David Hendry and Mary Morgan bring together the classic papers of the pioneer econometricians. Together, these papers form the foundations of econometric thought. They are essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the aims, method and methodology of econometrics and the development of this statistical approach in economics. However, because they are technically straightforward, the book is also accessible to students and non-specialists. An editorial commentary places the readings in their historical context and indicates the continuing relevance of these early, yet highly sophisticated, works for current econometric analysis. While this book provides a companion volume to Mary Morgan's acclaimed The History of Econometric Ideas, the editors' commentary both adds to that earlier volume and also provides a stand-alone and synthetic account of the development of econometrics.

Narrative Science examines the use of narrative in scientific research over the last two centuries. It brings together an international group of scholars who have engaged in intense collaboration to find and develop crucial cases of narrative in science. Motivated and coordinated by the Narrative Science project, funded by the European Research Council, this volume offers integrated and insightful essays examining cases that run the gamut from geology to psychology, chemistry, physics, botany, mathematics, epidemiology, and biological engineering. Taking in shipwrecks, human evolution, military intelligence, and mass extinctions, this landmark study revises our understanding of what science is, and the roles of narrative in scientists' work. This title is also available as Open Access.

Narrative Science examines the use of narrative in scientific research over the last two centuries. It brings together an international group of scholars who have engaged in intense collaboration to find and develop crucial cases of narrative in science. Motivated and coordinated by the Narrative Science project, funded by the European Research Council, this volume offers integrated and insightful essays examining cases that run the gamut from geology to psychology, chemistry, physics, botany, mathematics, epidemiology, and biological engineering. Taking in shipwrecks, human evolution, military intelligence, and mass extinctions, this landmark study revises our understanding of what science is, and the roles of narrative in scientists' work. This title is also available as Open Access.

During the last two centuries, the way economic science is done has changed radically: it has become a social science based on mathematical models in place of words. This book describes and analyses that change both historically and philosophically using a series of case studies to illuminate the nature and the implications of these changes. In format, it offers a tourist guide to economics by focusing chapters on specific models, explaining how economists create them and how they reason with them. It is not a technical book; it is written for the intelligent person who wants to understand how economics works from the inside out. This book will be of interest to economists and science studies scholars (historians, sociologists and philosophers of science). But it also aims at a wider readership in the public intellectual sphere, building on the current interest in all things economic, and in the recent failure of the so-called economic model, which has shaped our beliefs and the world we live in."

Models as Mediators discusses the ways in which models function in modern science, particularly in the fields of physics and economics. Models play a variety of roles in the sciences: they are used in the development, exploration and application of theories and in measurement methods. They also provide a mechanism for using scientific concepts and principles to intervene in the world. The editors provide a framework that covers the construction and function of scientific models, and explore the ways in which they enable us to learn about both theories and the world. The contributors to the volume offer their own individual theoretical perspectives and cover a wide range of examples of modeling. These papers provide ideal case study material for exploring both the concepts and typical elements of modeling methods, using analytical approaches from the domains of philosophy and history of science.

Why write about facts? Facts are everywhere. They litter the utterances of public life as much as the private conversations of individuals. They frequent the humanities and the sciences in equal measure. But their very ubiquity tells us not only why it is difficult to form general but sensible answers in response to seemingly simple questions about facts, but also why it is important to do so. This book discusses how facts travel, and when and why they sometimes travel well enough to acquire a life of their own. Whether or not facts travel in this manner depends not only on their character and ability to play useful roles elsewhere, but also on the labels, packaging, vehicles, and company that take them across difficult terrains and over disciplinary boundaries. These diverse stories of traveling facts, ranging from architecture to nanotechnology and from romance fiction to climate science, change the way we see the nature of facts. Facts are far from the bland and rather boring but useful objects that scientists and humanists produce and fit together to make narratives, arguments, and evidence. Rather, their extraordinary abilities to travel well and to fly flags of many different colors in the process shows when, how, and why facts can be used to build further knowledge beyond and away from their sites of original production and intended use.

In this compelling 1995 book, David Hendry and Mary Morgan bring together the classic papers of the pioneer econometricians. Together, these papers form the foundations of econometric thought. They are essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the aims, method and methodology of econometrics and the development of this statistical approach in economics. However, because they are technically straightforward, the book is also accessible to students and non-specialists. An editorial commentary places the readings in their historical context and indicates the continuing relevance of these early, yet highly sophisticated, works for current econometric analysis. While this book provides a companion volume to Mary Morgan's acclaimed The History of Econometric Ideas, the editors' commentary both adds to that earlier volume and also provides a stand-alone and synthetic account of the development of econometrics.

The History of Econometric Ideas covers the period from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, illustrating how economists first learned to harness statistical methods to measure and test the "laws" of economics. Though scholarly, Dr. Morgan's book is very accessible; it does not require a high level of prior statistical knowledge, and will be of interest to practicing statisticians and economists.