ABSTRACT
Read the statement from Baron Kelvin in Section 2 again. For Kelvin, measurement was important because it established the constants that described the world and forwarded science. His research into the measurement of temperature and the establishment of a definition of absolute zero remains the basis of scientific research today. When the astronomer Adolphe Quetelet turned his attention to the emerging ‘social sciences’, he wrote:
We cannot … demand from those who employ themselves with social physics, more than we should have done from those who foresaw the possibility of forming an astronomical theory, at a period when defective astronomical observations and false theories, or their total absence, with insufficient means of calculation, only existed. It was especially necessary to be certain of the means of performing such a task; it was afterwards necessary to collect precise observations with zeal and perseverance, to create and render perfect the methods for using them, and thus to prepare all the necessary elements of the edifice to be erected. Now, this is the course which I think it proper to pursue in forming a system of social physics.
(Quetelet, 1842: 9)