The evaluation of measurement uncertainties and its epistemological ramifications
Résumé
The way metrologists conceive of measurement has undergone a major shift in the last two decades. This
shift can in great part be traced to a change in the statistical methods used to deal with the expression of
measurement results, and, more particularly, with the calculation of measurement uncertainties. Indeed,
as we show, the incapacity of the frequentist approach to the calculus of uncertainty to deal with systematic
errors has prompted the replacement of the customary frequentist methods by fully Bayesian
procedures. The epistemological ramifications of the Bayesian approach merge with a deep empiricist
mood tantamount to an “epistemic turn”: measurement results are analysed in terms of degrees of belief,
and central concepts such as error and accuracy are called into question. We challenge the perspective
entailed by this epistemic turn: we insist on the centrality of the concepts of error and accuracy by
underlining the intentional character of measurement that is intimately linked to the process of
correction of experimental data. We further circumvent the difficulties posed by the classical analysis of
measurement by stressing the social rather than the epistemic dimension of measurement activities.
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