vii
life: monitoring of heart condition, mood, air quality…. This trend towards selftracking through measurement technology—which appears under the names of
body hacking, self-quantifying, or lifelogging—is motivated by the promise of a
healthier, longer, and better life. This promise cannot be fulfilled without rational
unification of heterogeneous measurements it relies upon. The book Measurement
Across the Sciences is about such a unification although the idea of self-quantifying
does not appear there. Pantometry, i.e., an obsessive desire to measure everything,
is another sociological phenomenon—provoked by extensive availability of measurement tools of various quality—which is creating enormous demand for conceptual unification of measurements across various domains of quantities, indicators,
and measures. Enough to say that the global market of sensors is expected to grow
by ca. 9% between 2020 and 2025.
5
The authors of the book Measurement Across the Sciences—not succumbing to
the temptation of white-black normativeness—provide a very pragmatic answer to
a frequently asked question about “bad measurement” by defining it as “not sufficiently objective and intersubjective according to the given purposes of the measurement” (Sect. 7.4.4). It should be noticed, however, that this statement makes
sense, provided the operation under consideration satisfies at least basic conditions
necessary for measurement identified in the book. Although the title of the book
seems to suggest that its contents apply exclusively to measurements in sciences, it
actually addresses not only the measurement tools and methodologies dedicated to
scientific research but also every instance of measurement which satisfies those
basic necessary conditions. One might even risk a hypothesis that the socioeconomic impact of the book will be significantly stronger outside of that restricted
area—in various domains of engineering, medicine, agriculture, food industry,
etc.—where the costs of erroneous decisions implied by ill-defined measurements
may be very high.
The book is about philosophical and logical foundations of measurement science. Philosophy is a never-ending discourse on the key assumptions of ontological
and epistemic nature, and logic is about systematically deriving conclusions from
those assumptions. The authors have clear-cut preferences if those assumptions are
concerned, but—being aware that they can be justified only a posteriori by the distant logical consequences—neither ignore nor oppugn the alternative approaches
and views. This is important if the book is to be received not only by philosophers
of science—who are inclined to invest enormous energy in the unproductive realismantirealism debates—but also by creative measurement practitioners who are interested in harmonization of various paradigms of measurement, developed and
applied in various domains of science and technology. There is such a need, and
there is such an expectation in the milieus which have to deal with complex systems
integrating measurement data representative of the objects, phenomena, and events
of various nature: physical, chemical, biological, psychological, etc. The book is
5 Mordor Intelligence: Sensors Market—Growth, Trends, and Forecast (2020–2025), www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-sensors-market [as of July 20, 2020].
Foreword
life: monitoring of heart condition, mood, air quality…. This trend towards selftracking through measurement technology—which appears under the names of
body hacking, self-quantifying, or lifelogging—is motivated by the promise of a
healthier, longer, and better life. This promise cannot be fulfilled without rational
unification of heterogeneous measurements it relies upon. The book Measurement
Across the Sciences is about such a unification although the idea of self-quantifying
does not appear there. Pantometry, i.e., an obsessive desire to measure everything,
is another sociological phenomenon—provoked by extensive availability of measurement tools of various quality—which is creating enormous demand for conceptual unification of measurements across various domains of quantities, indicators,
and measures. Enough to say that the global market of sensors is expected to grow
by ca. 9% between 2020 and 2025.
5
The authors of the book Measurement Across the Sciences—not succumbing to
the temptation of white-black normativeness—provide a very pragmatic answer to
a frequently asked question about “bad measurement” by defining it as “not sufficiently objective and intersubjective according to the given purposes of the measurement” (Sect. 7.4.4). It should be noticed, however, that this statement makes
sense, provided the operation under consideration satisfies at least basic conditions
necessary for measurement identified in the book. Although the title of the book
seems to suggest that its contents apply exclusively to measurements in sciences, it
actually addresses not only the measurement tools and methodologies dedicated to
scientific research but also every instance of measurement which satisfies those
basic necessary conditions. One might even risk a hypothesis that the socioeconomic impact of the book will be significantly stronger outside of that restricted
area—in various domains of engineering, medicine, agriculture, food industry,
etc.—where the costs of erroneous decisions implied by ill-defined measurements
may be very high.
The book is about philosophical and logical foundations of measurement science. Philosophy is a never-ending discourse on the key assumptions of ontological
and epistemic nature, and logic is about systematically deriving conclusions from
those assumptions. The authors have clear-cut preferences if those assumptions are
concerned, but—being aware that they can be justified only a posteriori by the distant logical consequences—neither ignore nor oppugn the alternative approaches
and views. This is important if the book is to be received not only by philosophers
of science—who are inclined to invest enormous energy in the unproductive realismantirealism debates—but also by creative measurement practitioners who are interested in harmonization of various paradigms of measurement, developed and
applied in various domains of science and technology. There is such a need, and
there is such an expectation in the milieus which have to deal with complex systems
integrating measurement data representative of the objects, phenomena, and events
of various nature: physical, chemical, biological, psychological, etc. The book is
5 Mordor Intelligence: Sensors Market—Growth, Trends, and Forecast (2020–2025), www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-sensors-market [as of July 20, 2020].
Foreword