The notion that measurement can directly affect the phenomena being examined is a major issue arising out of quantum mechanics with the problematized measurer/observer.
Kinda fascinated by the law named after this dude:
The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decisionmaking, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.
(Ex. high stakes testing advocated in No Child Left Behind.)
It would seem the act of applying quantitative measurement is laden with contingencies in a number of contexts.
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A social scientist, Campbell is also known for coining the term 'evolutionary epistemology,' an approach which applies the concepts of biological evolution to the growth of human knowledge.
That knowledge collapses onto ever evoloving cognitive abilities (based on ultimately biological thought organs) makes sense to me.
The idea that any epistemology could have an unchanging ground strikes me as stupid. There is no static ground for knowledge (unless we were to grow a knowledge organ and/or tap knowledge beyond the biological realm).
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