Theodore Porter



Theodore M. Porter (born 1953) is a professor who specializes in the history of science in the Department of History at UCLA. He has authored several books, including The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900; and Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, the latter a vast reference for sociology of quantification. His most recent book, published by Princeton University Press in 2018, is Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity. He graduated from Stanford University with an A.B. in history in 1976 and earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1981. In 2008, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2023, he received the George Sarton Medal for lifetime achievement from the History of Science Society.

Works

 * The Rise of Statistical Thinking (1986)
 * Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (1995)
 * The Modern Social Sciences, with Dorothy Ross (2003)
 * Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age (2004)
 * Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity (2018)