Measurement is the base of Natural Sciences. It adds precision to our knowledge but, in the Human Sciences it is not as easy to measure things up.

Can we measure the thoughts of a man?Can we even count them?

Thoughts cannot be measured because they are not a discrete series of ideas, but a continuous flow that melt into one another.

When you try to make sense of other people, do you pay more attention to

what they say or to what they do?

Variables What Human Sciences has don is translating qualitative concepts into measureable ones.

Rank Country Medals total

1 USA 101

2 Germany 65

3 Russia 63

4 China 50

11 Canada 22

Who really won the Centennial Olympics?

Total number of medals

Who really won the Centennial Olympics?

Colour of the medals

Country Gold Silver Bronze Medals total

USA 44 32 25 101

Germany 20 18 27 65

Russia 26 21 16 63

China 16 22 12 50

Canada 3 11 8 22

Who really won the Centennial Olympics?

Points per medal gold = 3 silver = 2 bronze = 1

Rank Country Gold Silver Bronze Points

1 USA 44 32 25 221

2 Russia 20 18 27 136

3 Germany 26 21 16 123

4 China 16 22 12 104

11 Canada 3 11 8 39

Here Russia and Germany change places

Population per country(base population from

which to choose its athletes)

Rank Country Points per million

1 Tonga 20

2 Bahamas 6.6

3 Cuba 4.6

25 Canada 1.3

37 USA 0.9

Rankings for measuring who won the Centennial Olympics may change more and more. We could think of age distribution, and measure based only on the ages for suitable athletes, that way we would get points per million of eligible age.

Other rankings could be comparative wealth (athletes from wealthy countries have better training facilities), or ‘home advantage’ (a team playing home tends to do better).

Different criteria will always bring different results although we try to establish a common scale in every case. So, do you think it is possible to answer the question ‘Which country won the Centennial Olympics?’ … does it matter?

Who really won the Centennial Olympics?

So far the conclusion seems to be that we will always run into problems when we try to measure different things… when people try to do this in everyday life we say they are comparing ‘apples and oranges’, but in economics, politics or demography among many others, it seems not to be a problem depending on the results each study is trying to achieve.

How would you go about trying to put a monetary value on human

life? ...can you think of situations in which society does it?