Talk:Metrication opposition
How much would it actually cost for the U.S. to switch to the metric system?
I am sure this issue has been discussed before. This page gives arguments that are clearly not from a NPOV, and in some cases are clearly just wrong. However the page is describing antimetrification, saying that these arguments are used to justify the point of view, not that they are correct.
What is the policy? I doubt that we would allow an an challenged list of pro-racist arguments on the Racism page, even if the justification is that "these arguments are used to justify Racism".
-- Chris Q 12:55 Sep 17, 2002 (UTC)
Is there really such a word as "antimetrification"? For that matter, is there even such a word as "metrification"? (The usual word is "metrication".) --Zundark 13:59 Sep 17, 2002 (UTC)
I have added redirects. There is such a word, but "metrication" is much more common.
Moved from topic. But converting between different units of measurement is rarely necessary. Is it harder to remember a whole number, or some fraction such as 25.4 or 39.37?
- I don't see the significance of remembering a fraction such as 25.4 or 39.37. I know no metric units that have these multiples. -- Chris Q 14:06 Sep 17, 2002 (UTC)
- I think that those numbers are 25.4 mm per inch and 39.37 inches per meter. In which case the person is trying to convert between the two systems, not within them. --rmhermen
- Thanks I see now. Of course that is only an argument for not having multiple systems.
"How much is the ongoing cost of maintaining several standards, converting for international trade, etc? Apparently none if you shift the cost to somebody else who has to convert your units of measurement into the local ones." -- great! so much for democracy and fairness and international trade! -- Tarquin
Removed:
- Still, the Indy 500 would never be the Indy 804.67; the Daytona 500 would never also be the Daytona 804.67; an American football field would never be referred to as 91.44 meters long; Jules Verne would never write 96,561 Kilometers Under the Sea; A 9-pound hammer would never be known as a 4.0823-kilogram hammer; Peter Piper would never pick 7570.8 cubic centimeters of pickled peppers; "You dig 14,515 kilograms and what do your get? Another day older and a deeper in debt."; top fuel drag racers would never admit to doing the 0.40234 kilometer in under 5 seconds. Oh well, if you give a proponent of the metric system 2.54 centimeters, he'll take 1.6093 kilometers.
And the 100 metre race? Sure, the old units have centuries of connotations. No-one's saying metrication bans the use of the words. As I wrote on the article, in France the pound ("livre") is still commonly used informally, on markets for example, as a half-kilogram. Are you saying, Gpietsch, that your cultural identity is so fragile that a change of units shatters it? -- Tarquin
If your culture is accustomed to using a system of measurement that dates back to the Roman times, and somebody else comes along with a different one and says that the whole world must adopt his system of measurement, how would that make you feel? The 100-meter race is just the metric equivalent of the 100-yard dash. -- Gregory Pietsch
It would make me feel like I need to grow up and stop investing so much emotion in trivialities. That argument about Roman times hardly applies to the USA, does it? -- Tarquin
Well, the American units were adopted from British units more than two centuries ago, and the British units were adopted from Roman units. The ancient systems used body measurements for linear measurements. Weight units were determined by how much a human or animal could carry. In ancient Egypt, about 3000 BC, the cubit was defined. It was calculated from the length from the extended fingertips to the tip of the elbow and was used as a standard of linear measurements. In the first millennium BC the Greek unit of measurement for length was the width of a finger, 16 fingers equaled one foot. Also at that time the Romans divided the foot into 12 unicae. Unicae means twelfth part and is the origin of the word inch.
The Roman system used the libra, or pound, as its unit of weight and the mile as its unit of distance. Liquid weight was based on the pint and dry measure on the quart. That a "pound" is abbreviated to "lb" today reflects its origins ("lb" is a contraction of the word "libra"). Much more recently, in 1830, the US Senate ordered an inspection in the customhouses and uncovered quite a variety of "standard" pounds. In the following years, a new standard pound was dispatched to the customhouses and to the governor of each state and adopted in 1828 as the official Mint reference. In 1959, all countries sharing traditional units adopt a standard pound (see below). (There was actually very little change required.)
The first attempts to standardize the measures in England can be traced to the Magna Carta (1215). At about this time, the "Iron Yard of our Lord the King" was prescribed, subdivided into 3 feet, each 12 inches long. Our yard itself is descended from the derivation of a unit of length based on the human arm.
Sets of standards for length and weight, generally in bronze, were sent from the capital - Winchester originally - to the main cities. In 1496, discrepancies had crept in and, following a Parliamentary inquiry, new standards were made. The same happened again in 1588, under Elizabeth I, and again in 1758. The last one, the Imperial Standard Yard in bronze was manufactured in 1845 after the previous standard had been destroyed in the fire that burned down the House of Parliament in 1834. Copies of this yard were sent to the US.
In England, the mile - derived from the Roman "mille passus" or 1000 double steps - was originally 5000 feet long as in the Roman definition (1 "passus" = 5 feet). Later, it was stretched to 5280 feet to accommodate exactly 8 furlongs, the most popular measure of the time. Furlong comes from the Greek and Roman stadion, which they themselves inherited from even more ancient times. It seems to be the optimal length for the traditional plough. The 1 mile = 5280 feet definition was voted in England by Parliament in 1595.
An early definition of an acre was defined by how much land an oxen could plow in a day.
In the US, in 1830 formal standardization began under the auspices of the Office of Standard Weights and Measures. In 1959, all countries using sharing traditional units such as inches, feet, miles etc. decided that an inch would be defined as 25.4 mm exactly (or 1 cm = 1/2.54 inch). This is why an inch is the same length worldwide. Other traditional units were similar defined (1 pound = 453.59237 g - or 1 kg = 1/0.45359237 pounds exactly). This means that they are as standardized and as accurate as any metric unit. Indeed, they could even be considered as "non-decimal" metric units!
This century, the definitions of these units are every bit as accurate as definitions of metric units. Indeed, this high level of standardization and definition of the units not only mean that they continue to be used to this day but that men were placed on the system was able to get man to the Moon. Indeed, in metricated countries like Canada, the system is still used wherever government bureaucrats have not been able to force it away because it has wide acceptance, is accurate and people are comfortable with it.
The United States legalized the metric system in 1857 (and in 1897 in the UK). Those industries choosing to go metric have done so (and any others wishing to do so in the future may). Clearly, the general public and many professions did not want to and will only be forced to do so by bureaucrats and under legal threats. However, despite the obvious choice of most industries and the vast majority of people to stay with American units, in 1975, the United States Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act to begin a process of "voluntary change". A law calling for voluntary change is a curious thing since laws are meant to be followed. Since then, bureaucrats and government have continued to push to getting rid of American units. The people have never been asked for their opinion, but if they had, they would favor the inch, mile, ounce, gallon, and pound over the respective metric equivalents.
- how would that make you feel?
- IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW IT WOULD MAKE ME -- OR YOU -- FEEL. Wikipedia ia an encyclopedia, not a soapbox. Is there really a public debate over whether or not the metric system should be adopted? If so, perhaps there should be an encyclopedia article discussing it. But this is one of the sorriest pages I have seen here. As far as I know, no advocate of the metric system claims that other systems are "inaccurate," so I do not see how claiming that feel and inches are "accurate" is relevant one way or the other. I think the whole article should be deleted. An article on "the metric system" can have a section on debates concerning its adoption. An article on systems of measurement can include some of what is here on the talk page, which is indeed mildly informative. But as an article on a debate or movement, this article seems poorly researched and not at all NPOV.
- The people have never been asked for their opinion, but if they had, they would favor
- is a good example -- an encyclopedia should report what people do do, and say -- not what the "would" say "if" they were asked! Geez! Slrubenstein
- Greg, my point about the USA was that is doesn't have its own culture stretching back to the Roman times. Any change will necessitate a rough transition period. If we went by your logic, the ATX would never have supplanted the AT, nor the PCI bus the ISA, because transition would have been judged too painful. 50 years from now, everyone in the UK will have grown up with the metric system as 2nd nature, and they won't bat an eyelid at it. Read La Guerre de Boutons, that mentions anti-metrication in 19th century France. These days no-one cares. sic transit... and all that -- Tarquin
It's happened already. I think that Pounds, Shillings and Pence made a reasonable currency system. My kids think that they were quaint but they're glad they never had to use them -- Derek
Who says pecks aren't still used? They are still used in the Midwestern USA. --rmhermen
In answer to the question posed in the RC log, a peck is a unit of dry measure (yes, that't right folks -- it's a unit of volume that can only be used to measure certain things. That's a little quirk worth preserving, right?). It's equal to 8 quarts or 1/4 of a bushel. Prizes will be awarded to the first person who can find out: (1) what 4 quarts are; (2) how many quarts in a bushel. ;-) -- Tarquin
an inch would be defined as 25.4 mm exactly
You mean an "international inch". Then there's of course also the different "U.S. survey inch", used in parallel, with most people not even aware which one they are using at any given time.
the system was able to get man to the Moon
Yup, but the Mars observer was not as lucky, crashing because of forgotten unit conversion, to the tune of $750 million.
in 1975, the United States Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act
Just like the decision of the English parliament to redefine the mile in 1595. Are you against that one too?
AxelBoldt 19:38 Sep 17, 2002 (UTC)
I'm for moving this page to meta. It doesn't actually say anything about an Antimetrification campaign (such as who supports it, when did it start, what were the significant events of its history.) It's just a load of opinions, delivered with quite a bit of bile, and the attempts of several Wikipedians to counterbalance them with NPOV. And the term "Antimetrification" Googles VERY badly: TWO results. "Anti-metrication" does a little bit better, but it's still crackpot sites whining about their rights to measure. Go and campaign for somebody's right to vote. Pick a real issue. -- Tarquin 22:31 Oct 1, 2002 (UTC)
No, this is a great page! Not only does it highlight the pro vs. con well, it's also a model of table usage.
By the way, on the "precision" thing:
- For example, the human body temperature, as expressed in Fahrenheit, always uses a decimal value.
Normal body temperature is 37 degrees Celsius, which is a round number -- not 37.0 degrees. When it's converted into Fahrenheit (to 98.6 degrees), it acquires a phony accuracy due to the excessive precision. The normal range is around 0.5 Fahrenheit. Sometimes parents worry that their child has a fever if the thermometer reads 99.0, but that's actually a normal body temperature. (Not to mention the variation between under-the-tongue, the inner ear and other bodily orifices. --Ed Poor
- No, this is an awful page! I agree entirely with Tarquin. I continue to find this article surreal -- it is not in any way an article about a "movement" (Such an article might be interesting); it is more like someone took a segment of a list-serve debate and turned it into a table. The "counter arguments" sound less like attempts to render the article NPOV than attempts to humor an idea that was bad to begin with. This page is not at all a great example of listing "pros" and "cons" because the various sides of the argument are so decontextualized and many of them are, frankly, silly. I have no idea who made any of these arguments, when, or why. I am left suspecting that some of these arguments were made by an isolated reactionary with too much time on his or her hands. I realize this may be terribly unfair -- but unless the article provides some context for the debate, it is hard to resist reaching this conclusion.
- What is needed is a good article on metrification, one that provides all the historical context, including specific, named, and contextualized conflicts that arose during the process of metrification (e.g. in 18xx the French government reverted for the following reasons; or in 19xx Senator A proposed metrification, senators B and C made the following objections...)
Tarquin is right -- the page should be deleted, and the contents transfered to meta or the listserve. Slrubenstein
- just popping in to say for the record there is metrication, which gives (IMO) a fairly neutral account. -- Tarquin
--- Sheesh. All this talk and someone could have just edited the entry. --The Cunctator
Old version of the article, for the sake of reference:
Anti-metrication is the process of rejecting the metric system in favor of a different system of measurement, typically the American or the different UK Imperial one. Some of the arguments commonly given for antimetrification (with counterarguments) are:
| Argument | Counter-argument |
|---|---|
| The definition of the metre changed no fewer than three times since 1790 (the latest being in 1965) and is currently deemed to be 1/299,792,458th of the distance light travels in one second. That's a real handy reference next time you are measuring a room for carpets or wallpaper. | In practice, the speed-of-light definition was codified based on the previous agreed length; nothing has changed except for a few physicists. The precise definition is used only when needed. The definition of the yard, for example, used to change each time the physical "standard yard" was measured. That's why the customary units are now defined in terms of the metric units, to avoid this sort of confusion. Since an inch is defined as 0.0254 metres, the problem applies equally to customary units. |
| Users of such units as miles, feet and inches, tons, pounds and ounces, gallons and quarts do not have to justify themselves. | But obviously neither do those who are comfortable with grams, kilometres, or degrees Celsius. |
| American units are as accurate as metric units. | Metric units are as accurate as American units |
| Decimals are no more accurate than fractions. | But decimals are easier to work with and less prone to lead to mistakes when doing calculations. |
| The fact that metric units are base ten in fact has virtually no relevance either to day to day life or to scientific and engineering manipulation. This is because conversion between units of the same dimension (e.g. centimetres to kilometres) is rarely necessary or useful. | This is just not true, since people convert between feet and yards, or pounds and ounces, quite frequently; and scientific/engineering applications definitely require frequent conversions. The relevance to everyday life derives from the fact that most people have ten fingers. |
| A base-12 measuring system is superior to a base-10 system, as 12 has many more factors than 10. The American system of liquid measurement is actually base-2 (a gallon is 64 fluid ounces), which has other advantages. | Actually American liquid measurements don't form a complete base 2 system, and even for a partially complete system requires the use of the gill, peck, bushel and quart. Not only are these unfamiliar to many people (even in countries where they are traditional units) but they are different from identically named Imperial units. Still, it is a lot easier to divide 12 by 3 than 10; but this is why metric boards come in 120-centimetre lengths, not 100)
The superiority of of base-12 or base-2 systems to base-10 systems is also disputable. Since base-10 systems are used for numbers, the argument of consistency may beat any other argument. |
| Because one degree Fahrenheit is smaller than one degree Centigrade, degrees Fahrenheit are more precise. | But of course, there's no need to measure in whole degrees. In practice, meteorologists and other scientists who are concerned about precise temperature often report temperatures in tenths or hundredths of a degree, in either system. For example, the human body temperature, as expressed in Fahrenheit, always uses a decimal value. |
| Supporters of American units consider them to have a more human scale than metric ones. | This is highly subjective, especially when one is arguing for miles and quarts instead of kilometres and litres. Still, the yard was originally defined as the length of some dead king's arm. The metre's original definition was 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator on a meridian through Paris, France, based upon an inexact measure of the circumference of the Earth. Which one is a more human scale? Given that the two lengths are within 10% of each other, it's your call. |
| The naming system of the metric system is systematic but repetitive. Humans find words that are distinct easier to store. The metric system does not lend itself to this. | This ignores the extra information that users of most traditional systems have to learn; multipliers of 4, 5.5, 12, 14, 16, 20, 200, 220, 1760, etc. By the naming system argument we should all learn to write using Chinese symbols since they are distinct for each word and thus easier to store whereas alphabetic systems are systematic but repetitive. The problem with Chinese being that its lack of systematic repetition means that you can't work out the sound or meaning of a new symbol whereas with an alphabetic system you have a fighting chance. This problem also applies to the measuring systems. Knowing the size of an inch doesn't help you calculate the size of a league without specific knowledge about their relative sizes whereas knowing the size of a decimetre lets you calculate the size of a megametre based on the meanings of the standard prefixes. |
| Different countries using metric units show preferences for different, often non-SI units. For example, in France, agricultural production is often measured not in kilograms, or grams, but in "qx" - metric quintals (100 kg). In this, American traditional units, standardized by international agreement in 1959, are more stable than metric units. | Again, this claim ignores the existence of troy ounces and pounds, the two slightly different miles used in the US, and the difference between U.S. and imperial units of the same name. The quintal is no longer legal in France. Furthermore, the existance of units such as quintal, and the "metric pound" of 500 grams (non-legal, but commonly used in France and Germany for example; a U.S. pound is 453 grams) can be taken to show that the metric system allows local flexibility, while retaining ease of conversion. |
| It is often said that the United States is the only major country using a non-metric system. This is, however, false. Not only are there other countries that still mostly use their traditional units, but traditional units live on throughout the world. For example, France, the source of the metric system, uses pouces (inches) for tires. In Ecuador, liquids are measured in gallones. In China, distances are often measured in li. Even in countries where the government has attempted to replace traditional units, they live on. Take Canada for example: carpentry is done in inches, etc. | In most cases, these are transitory phenomena. In others, the pressure should be to rectify the anomalies, not revert back to pre-metric units. Canadians sometimes use hybrid measurements; this reflects the close connection between the Canadian and American economies, rather than any intent to retain imperial units. Tires are in inches in most countries, not only in France, it's just traditional and has nothing to do with convenience. |
| You shouldn't have to use another system of measurement just for tires. | Of course both the pro- and anti-metric will agree on this; the pro-metric would argue that tires should be measured in metric, the anti-metric forces would argue that everything should be measured in their prefered local traditional system. |
| Imposing the metric system, or any system of measurement, on people against their will is undemocratic. | This argument ignores the long-standing role of governments in defining units of measurement. For purposes of trade, a standard system is needed. Besides, the system of measurement you use is imposed on you anyway, be it by a government or by local customs. There's also little evidence to show it is against the will of the majority, except for a few minor cases of British tradesmen refusing to comply and erroneously invoking "human rights". |
| Metrification is not only unnecessary, but expensive. | This involves a one-time cost during the conversion process. How much is the ongoing cost of maintaining several standards, converting for international trade, and so forth? |
| ...but converting is not a "one-time cost" but an ongoing waste of money, brains, and time. The United States has been "converting" since 1975, and costs have been mounting. | The costs are only ongoing because the anti-metric forces drag out the process over a very extended length of time. |
|
Still, the Indy 500 would never be the Indy 804.67; the Daytona 500 would never also be the Daytona 804.67; an American football field would never be referred to as 91.44 metres long; Jules Verne would never write 96,561 Kilometres Under the Sea; A 9-pound hammer would never be known as a 4.0823-kilogram hammer; Peter Piper would never pick 7570.8 cubic centimetres of pickled peppers; "You dig 14,515 kilograms and what do your get? Another day older and a deeper in debt."; top fuel drag racers would never admit to doing the 0.40234 kilometre in under 5 seconds. Oh well, if you give a proponent of the metric system 2.54 centimetres, he'll take 1.6093 kilometres. | However, there would be nothing wrong with the Indy 800, a 90 metre football field, 100,000km under the sea, and so on. There is nothing wrong, either, with non-round dimensions like 21 cm × 29.7 cm (the A4 standard sheet size) in the decimal system. Nothing forces you into changing the size of a football field, except, of course, that the size of the field is dictated by the rules of the sport.
Of course the units peck, league etc. are not in current usage in the UK or USA, and nobody has ever felt compelled to translate them to miles or ounces. Indeed, most English speakers are not aware of the "peck" as a unit, and take it to be a non-specific word meaning "a small amount". This illustrates the misunderstandings caused by inconsistant systems, in fact the peck at 16 pints is fairly large! (As a counter-counterargument, Webster's Dictionary lists a colloquial definition of a peck as "a large amount". Whom are you going to believe?) |
| There is no compelling reason to change the entrenched system that has worked for centuries on its own, and for decades alongside various versions of the metric system. If there was a valid cost benefit for business, all businesses would have changed to metric exclusively years ago. As this has not happened, and as there is no serious effort underway to make it happen, opponents of metrication argue that the minor benefits of metrication are offset by the initial cost and confusion of a large-scale conversion. | Claiming that a system that is more confusing and difficult to use has "worked" ignores the question of what works best. Also, it would be
difficult for businesses to switch without "top-down" pressure, because the change needs to happen in a swift and discrete manner. |
| ...but confusion and difficulty are relative, and one could argue that the metric system is confusing because of all the converting between customary units of measurement and the metric system, and that multiplying or dividing by powers of ten to measure things is just as confusing. | But converting between other units should be a temporary phase, and multiplying/dividing by powers of ten is inherently easy because of our decimal number system. |
Similar arguments are used in the UK for retention of imperial units, though the argument that imperial measures are more "stable" is not used. This is probably due to the greater knowledge that there are different gallons, tons, pounds etc. used through the world.
See also: metrication
Are you sure a "real article" will not diverge out of control, too, and the same way the table of arguments did ?
- An exception to the above rules of thumb is Fahrenheit vs. Celsius, as Fahrenheit was not properly calibrated on its intended scale, and Celsius evenly divides temperature between the freezing and boiling point of water. (The scientific unit of temperature, Kelvin, is calibrated on an absolute scale.) However, Fahrenheit's higher resolution is more useful for describing air temperature.
Also, I don't understand the paragraph on Celsius vs Fahrenheit. Where are "the above rules of thumb" ? What means "Fahrenheit was not properly calibrated on its intended scale" ? What's the intended scale of Fahrenheit ? How did calibration fail ?
The argument However, Fahrenheit's higher resolution is more useful for describing air temperature is totally unsound. As regards to air temperature, Celsius suits me perfectly, no need for decimals, and I know when it's freezing. As regards to body temperature (looks like a better argument), Fahrenheit must use one decimal too, AFAICanGuess.
If we reintroduce arguments and counter-arguments like this, sure it will go out of control. I'm not convinced there is a need for an article on antimetrication when we have metrication.
-- FvdP 17:59 Oct 3, 2002 (UTC)
I'm going to remove the recent comment:
Time metrication has also been implemented as the cost of replacing all clocks, watches, and timers would be vastly higher than changing any other unit.
because it is non-sensical.
(Aside from the fact it was probably meant to say "not been implemented"), as already explained, the metric system permits the usual set of units (days, hours) for everyday use. The many countries which use the metric system retain these units. Nobody is proposing the kilosecond etc.
--Trainspotter 16:18, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I added that sentence, I think it is useful in that it explains why nobody is proposing the kilosecond etc.- SimonP 16:41, Feb 10, 2004 (UTC)
- I think there is still a misunderstanding. Use of hour etc is not a sign of incomplete metrication, because the metric system already includes the minute, hour and day (see e.g. here).
- The economic cost of changing clocks is to some extent a side-issue. As far as I can tell, your reasoning seems to be:
- Full metrication demands kiloseconds etc
- But it costs too much
- So supposedly "metric" countries settle for an incomplete metrication which retains hours etc instead
- whereas I suggest that really it is:
- The metric system permits choice of e.g. hours or kiloseconds.
- Of these, people in fully-metric countries choose hours for everyday use, as more convenient because they divide exactly into a day. (Hence also e.g. measuring speeds in km/h, even though for scientific calculations m/s is generally used.)
- (And incidentally, yes, changing clocks to kiloseconds would also be expensive. But there is no reason to do so, anyway.)
- --Trainspotter 16:02, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I suggest the content of this article is merged with metrication and redirected there. Not for any POV or political reason - just because the general rule is to include both pro- and counter-arguments in one article. Anyway, quite a lot of the content is reproduced over at metrication. What do people think? Toby W 08:30, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I think that would be a good idea. Mark Richards 21:58, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Right, well I've done it, and made this page a redirect. Toby W 08:18, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Cool - there might be some work on integrating them still, but this is better - are there any redirects to fix? Mark Richards 16:13, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Fixed 'em :o) though yes, no doubt the two could be better integrated Toby W
- Cool - there might be some work on integrating them still, but this is better - are there any redirects to fix? Mark Richards 16:13, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)