[1]After noting how officials fear being criticized for arbitrariness and bias, he concludes:A decision made by the numbers (or by explicit rules of some other sort) has at least the appearance of being fair and impersonal, p.
[5] Based on a number of case studies in different countries — actuaries in the UK and US, engineers in France and in the US — Porter demonstrates that the allure of quantitative and standardized measures does not derive from their success in the natural sciences, but arise from the need of professional groups to "respond to external social and political pressures demanding accountability".
[5] The author traces the history of cost-benefit analysis in a way that make evident the bureaucratic and political conflicts whereby actuaries and experts of different disciplines fought to maintain structures of power and privilege within national styles and contexts.
[6] He illustrates the point by comparing the practices and contexts of the Army Corps of Engineers in the US versus those of Les Ingénieurs des Ponts et Chaussées in France (pp. 114–190).
[1] The very last chapter of Trust in Numbers shows — following a critical path opened by Sharon Traweek, p. 222[1] — that in the most highly developed and leading research communities, for example among high-energy physicists, numbers and quantification are not center stage — a place that is taken by a community of trust, where a "personal knowledge" is at play, that ensures the creativity and vitality of the discipline, a point made by other STS scholars.