Theodore M. Porter (born 1953) is a professor who specializes in the history of science in the Department of History at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. He has authored several books, including ''The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900''; and ''Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life'', the latter a vast reference for

sociology of quantification Sociology of quantification can be defined as the investigation of quantification as a sociological phenomenon in its own right.W. N. Espeland and M. L. Stevens“A sociology of quantification,” Eur. J. Sociol., vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 401–436, 200 ...

.E. Popp Berman and D. Hirschman, “The Sociology of Quantification: Where Are We Now?,” Contemp. Sociol., vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 257–266, 2018. His most recent book, published by Princeton University Press in 2018, is ''Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity''. He graduated from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

with an A.B. in history in 1976 and earned a Ph.D. from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1981. In 2008, he was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

.Faculty Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences — History

Works

* ''The Rise of Statistical Thinking'' (1986) * ''Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life'' (1995) * ''The Modern Social Sciences'', with Dorothy Ross (2003) * ''Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age'' (2004) * ''Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity'' (2018)

External links

Professor Porter's Home-page

Notes and references

20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Living people American historians of science Philosophers of science 1953 births American male non-fiction writers {{US-sci-historian-stub