Kevin Padraic Donnelly is an associate professor of history at Alvernia University. His scholarship has appeared in the British Journal for the History of Science, History of Science, PUBLIC Journal, and History of Meteorology, and he has published several chapters in edited volumes on the role of statistics and science in shaping social thought. His previous book is a well-acclaimed history of the pioneering nineteenth-century statistician Adolphe Quetelet.

The originality and strength of the book rests in its reversed perspective: it does not trace the construction of calculating machines and smart technologies with ever greater potential but rather looks carefully at how machine models and mechanical modes of thinking gained traction in the human and social sciences.

Kevin Padraic Donnelly is an associate professor of history at Alvernia University. His scholarship has appeared in the British Journal for the History of Science, History of Science, PUBLIC Journal, and History of Meteorology, and he has published several chapters in edited volumes on the role of statistics and science in shaping social thought. His previous book is a well-acclaimed history of the pioneering nineteenth-century statistician Adolphe Quetelet.

The originality and strength of the book rests in its reversed perspective: it does not trace the construction of calculating machines and smart technologies with ever greater potential but rather looks carefully at how machine models and mechanical modes of thinking gained traction in the human and social sciences.

Kevin Padraic Donnelly is an associate professor of history at Alvernia University. His scholarship has appeared in the British Journal for the History of Science, History of Science, PUBLIC Journal, and History of Meteorology, and he has published several chapters in edited volumes on the role of statistics and science in shaping social thought. His previous book is a well-acclaimed history of the pioneering nineteenth-century statistician Adolphe Quetelet.

The originality and strength of the book rests in its reversed perspective: it does not trace the construction of calculating machines and smart technologies with ever greater potential but rather looks carefully at how machine models and mechanical modes of thinking gained traction in the human and social sciences.