Summary Of A Passion Of Fact By Tong Lam

As we are living in the twenty-first century, scientific measurements take parts on almost every aspect of our lives. For example, new technological developments, election polls, and traffic conditions illustrate the use of social science. In A Passion of Fact by Tong Lam, he argues that Chinese adoption of using social science methods in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century completely transform China into a “fact-based society” by using survey as the basis. (Lam 2) However, Lam believes the transformation goes through many barriers because of populations, old traditional views, and internal conflicts (49). All the arguments Lam presents in the introduction are discussed throughout, but the emphasis on how China utilizes social science (i.e. probability and statistic) to conduct survey, and turn themselves into a fact-based society really intrigues me. In particular, Chapter one describes how the rise of probability

(42) Even though the seeking truth from facts is different in the Ming dynasty compare to the modern version we have right now, it was still an improvement from just having “facts” from history. Lam’s argue that the fall of Ming was the reason China stopped modernizing until the Europeans and the Americans came to criticize. Furthermore, he asserts that the innovative approach Ming had could be the basis of China modernization just like the Europeans did. (43) However, since the Qing abandoned the idea until two centuries later, China revolutionized as a fact-based society in the twentieth century. The social survey movement followed was absolutely crucial in order to reshape China into a social world. Based on the evidence Lam presented, it is convincing that China ignorance and traditional value cost them to become weak in the twentieth century before transforming into a fact-based