“…Similar to their counterparts in the wider field, they have regularly used statistics as a "means" for analysis, but have rarely made statistics an "object" of investigation (Starr 1987, 8). Fortunately, for my research, I have been able to build on growing sociological interest in the role of numbers, metrics, and rankings in social life (Espeland and Sauder 2007, Vardi 2014, McFall 2011, Waidzunas 2012, e.g., De Santos 2009, Leibler 2014. This research has built on the pioneering work of historians and philosophers of science, such as Mary Poovey, Ian Hacking, Michel Foucault, and Theodore Porter.…”