Everyone.
I think those folk interested probably ought to read Stigler's 'History of
Statistics The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900' - available from
amazon.com. Certainly the work of Bernoulli on probability, and others using
statistics to aid astronomy, appear to pre-date "the social and biological
sciences."
Some reviews of Stigler below
An exceptionally searching, almost loving, study of the relevant
inspirations and aberrations of its principal characters James Bernoulli, de
Moivre, Bayes, Laplace, Gauss, Quetelet, Lexis, Galton, Edgeworth, and
Pearson, not neglecting a grand supporting cast...The definitive record of
an intellectual Golden Age, an overoptimistic climb to a height not to be
maintained.
--M. Stone, Science
The book is a pleasure to read: the prose sparkles; the protagonists are
vividly drawn; the illustrations are handsome and illuminating; the insights
plentiful and sharp. This will remain the definitive work on the early
development of mathematical statistics for some time to come.
--Lorraine J. Daston, Journal of Modern History
One is tempted to say that the history of statistics in the nineteenth
century will be associated with the name Stigler.
--Morris Kline, New York Times Book Review
In this tour de force of careful scholarship, Stephen Stigler has laid bare
the people, ideas, and events underlying the development of statistics...He
has written an important and wonderful book...Sometimes Stigler's prose is
so evocative it is almost poetic.
--Howard Wainer, Contemporary Psychology
enjoy
David
[writing in a purely personal capacity]
-----Original Message-----
From: Allan Reese [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 October 2003 14:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Comment: statistics on BBC radio
In a discussion on the Today programme this morning, between a "professor
of physics" and a "profession of social science", the latter claimed that
statistical methods had been applied in the first instance in the social
and biological sciences. Clearly he had not heard of Gauss.
R. Allan Reese Email: [log in to unmask]
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