I am a philosopher and historian of measurement in science and medicine, focusing on clinical measuring practices and methodology. Currently, I am based in Durham, England as a Bridging Fellow in Medical Humanities hosted by the Department of Philosophy at Durham University and the Measurement Lab within the Institute for Medical Humanities and Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities.
My research prods at the assumptions we make about measurement done well—is it always the case that “standardized” is better? If our notion of “validation” or “precision” requires many trials, how do we measure well if we only have “one shot,” as whe…
I am a philosopher and historian of measurement in science and medicine, focusing on clinical measuring practices and methodology. Currently, I am based in Durham, England as a Bridging Fellow in Medical Humanities hosted by the Department of Philosophy at Durham University and the Measurement Lab within the Institute for Medical Humanities and Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities.
My research prods at the assumptions we make about measurement done well—is it always the case that “standardized” is better? If our notion of “validation” or “precision” requires many trials, how do we measure well if we only have “one shot,” as when measuring something that is individual to a single patient? My philosophical work on measurement begins by engaging with historical cases that disturb our most cherished notions of “accuracy” and “reliability”—when standardization fails, but somehow we measure anyway. I show what we can learn about measurement from the historical cases that, theoretically, shouldn’t exist. To do this work, my attention is drawn to scientists’ measuring practices and the materials that enable them. I show how the physical and temporal act of measuring is intimately tied up in the models, notation, and institutions that emerge to shape (and be shaped around) these practices.
