The inevitable perversion of measurement
From the post:
Supposedly one of the tactics in the fight against obesity is to change how we measure obesity (from BMI to DXA): that’s the key message in an LA Times article (link).
This is a great read if only because it covers many common problems of measurement systems. In thinking about invented metrics, such as SAT scores, employee performance ratings and teacher ratings, bear in mind they only have names because we gave them names.
Measuring things always lead to perverse behavior. Here are some examples straight out of this article:
The list of “perversions” include:
1. The metric, even if accurately measured, has no value
2. Blame the failure of a program on the metric
3. A metric becomes more complicated over time
If I am looking for “perversion” I am likely to skip this channel. 😉
On the other hand, the post does list some of the issues relative to our attempts at measurement.
Measurement is an important component for the judging of similarity and sameness.
Can you find/point out other posts addressing issues with measurement? (perverse or not)