An interesting book (!), thanks for writing about Ghosh's book. I wonder whether there have also been shifts in philosophical underpinnings of British, American, French, Japanese etc statistics. And whether it is worth comparing the existing philosophical underpinnings of American vs Chinese statistics, to see if there are capitalist vs socialist influences.
There must have been, I would suppose, but I do not know of them. I picked Ghoshs book because I am a user of Chinese statistics and I was intrigued by how it developed. Just as a user, you note differences between the pre-1966 period and the post-1978 period. So that was the reason. Ghosh however does not expand on the philosophy of statistical research beyond what I have reviewed.
I just read The Theory That Would Not Die by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne and I thought it gave an excellent overview of Baye's theory and the centuries-long struggle between competing statistical thought in Europe/the US. As someone who hasn't studied a lot of statistics, I thought it was accessible and gave me a lot to think about regarding the formation of science and "objectivity".
There is a tale I was taught where a French king commissioned from the best cartographers he could have the best, most detailed map of France ever. It would be the perfect map.
The cartographers produced and delivered him a map of the exact size of France. A facsimile of France.
The moral of the story is: synthesis is the homo sapiens' super power. No other species we know of has the capacity of abstraction and synthesis the homo sapiens has. Marx had already noticed it, when he stated that the difference between the worst architect and the worker bee is that the former idealizes the construction in his head before building it, while the latter just do it.
Science is not the the truth. The objective of science is to produce models of the truth -- models which are socially useful to us. The truth in itself is already given, it exists and will continue to exist with or without human blessing; it is what humans do with the truth they can grasp that makes human societal formations and, as such, us as humans ourselves.
This is Jorge Luis Borges, "Del rigor en la ciencia", ... In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it.
For a reasonably balanced overview, I recommend Jeffrey Wasserstrom, The Oxford History of Modern China (Oxford Univ. Press, 2022). Caution: there are earlier editions; this one has an update for the Xi Jinping era. There are many other overview histories of modern China, and all of them have some degree of bias to watch for. You can't cover a topic this huge - including pre-communist and communist eras - without introducing point of view.
This book starts with the Qing [Ch'ing] conquest in 1644. But to understand the present you need the background; this is true everywhere but perhaps esp. so for China.
If you are feeling really ambitious, MIT has a free! online course syllabus for what looks like an excellent overview from 1770 to the present. It recommends two basic textbooks - a history and a documentary selection - both by Jonathan Spence (taught at Yale for 40 years). Its list of other recommended reading, and considerable video items, is outstanding. https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21h-152-modern-china-spring-2022
(Note: FWIW, I used to teach the rise of modern China as a combined history and politics course.)
It's a must-read for me now. I'm very impressed. Thanks for presenting this book to us.
An interesting book (!), thanks for writing about Ghosh's book. I wonder whether there have also been shifts in philosophical underpinnings of British, American, French, Japanese etc statistics. And whether it is worth comparing the existing philosophical underpinnings of American vs Chinese statistics, to see if there are capitalist vs socialist influences.
There must have been, I would suppose, but I do not know of them. I picked Ghoshs book because I am a user of Chinese statistics and I was intrigued by how it developed. Just as a user, you note differences between the pre-1966 period and the post-1978 period. So that was the reason. Ghosh however does not expand on the philosophy of statistical research beyond what I have reviewed.
I just read The Theory That Would Not Die by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne and I thought it gave an excellent overview of Baye's theory and the centuries-long struggle between competing statistical thought in Europe/the US. As someone who hasn't studied a lot of statistics, I thought it was accessible and gave me a lot to think about regarding the formation of science and "objectivity".
There is a tale I was taught where a French king commissioned from the best cartographers he could have the best, most detailed map of France ever. It would be the perfect map.
The cartographers produced and delivered him a map of the exact size of France. A facsimile of France.
The moral of the story is: synthesis is the homo sapiens' super power. No other species we know of has the capacity of abstraction and synthesis the homo sapiens has. Marx had already noticed it, when he stated that the difference between the worst architect and the worker bee is that the former idealizes the construction in his head before building it, while the latter just do it.
Science is not the the truth. The objective of science is to produce models of the truth -- models which are socially useful to us. The truth in itself is already given, it exists and will continue to exist with or without human blessing; it is what humans do with the truth they can grasp that makes human societal formations and, as such, us as humans ourselves.
Yes, Borges's short story "On the exactness of science" is exactly about the map that fully reproduces the object, 1-to-1.
This is Jorge Luis Borges, "Del rigor en la ciencia", ... In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it.
“On Exactitude in Science”
—Jorge Luis Borges
This makes me curious to learn about the 20th century history of China. Any recommendations of books on this topic?
For a reasonably balanced overview, I recommend Jeffrey Wasserstrom, The Oxford History of Modern China (Oxford Univ. Press, 2022). Caution: there are earlier editions; this one has an update for the Xi Jinping era. There are many other overview histories of modern China, and all of them have some degree of bias to watch for. You can't cover a topic this huge - including pre-communist and communist eras - without introducing point of view.
This book starts with the Qing [Ch'ing] conquest in 1644. But to understand the present you need the background; this is true everywhere but perhaps esp. so for China.
If you are feeling really ambitious, MIT has a free! online course syllabus for what looks like an excellent overview from 1770 to the present. It recommends two basic textbooks - a history and a documentary selection - both by Jonathan Spence (taught at Yale for 40 years). Its list of other recommended reading, and considerable video items, is outstanding. https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/21h-152-modern-china-spring-2022
(Note: FWIW, I used to teach the rise of modern China as a combined history and politics course.)
Great recommendations! Thank you.