The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900

by Theodore M. Porter

An outstanding feature of Mr. Porter's book is its depiction of the interrelationships between statistics and certain intellectual and social movements. . . . [The book] is unfailingly interesting -Morris Kline, New York Times Book Review "The Rise of Statistical Thinking avoids technicalities and concentrates on the flow of ideas between the natural and social sciences. It emphasizes the philosophical issues raised by novel statistical methods, and how they affected the subject's development" -Ian Stewart, Nature

Genres: History, Science, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Mathematics, History Of Science, Economics

348 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Josiah Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not nearly as boring as you think and FAR more relevant to you (and me) than you think.
We are (culturally) statistical thinkers, and seeing how we got here, given the instability and "probability" of statistics themselves, is quite something. Statistics are not facts. Although sometimes helpful, they're always false, and this book unravels why, and how we came to reject that socially (and scientifically.)
My main gripe with this excellently researched book by Theodore M. Porter, is that it's written to an academic audience. There's a decent amount of math and references that I don't have the formal education to keep up with (that's on me), but the formal language takes away from the significance at times. Perhaps a new edition for the plebians is in order.
All that aside, excellent.

[Masatoshi Nishimura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of the names were not recognizable. But it's a great book to give historical context at the time around 18th century. Statistics gave power to the central government and bureaucracies. But it also constrained the government in how they operate. Johann Peter Süssmilch promoted that the government's job is to promote population growth. In the 21 century, we've given up al concepts of population concept, only to replace it by the GDP growth. It is truly innovative that we've defined the role of government that affects our day to day life.

[Aaron Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The crystallization of a mathematical statistics out of the wealth of applications developed during the nineteenth century provides the natural culmination to this story.


“While revolutions are taking place with a frightening speed, empires are collapsing, and passions ravaging the world, there are savants and philosophers who are following attentively the progress of events, analyzing them and striving to subject them to general laws very nearly as constant as those of astronomy and physics. To prove that man is placed under the empire of fixed laws which direct his will without obstructing his free agency, such is the goal of these... works.”
—DUC DE CARAMAN (1849)

“The masses seem to me worthy of notice in only three respects: first as blurred copies of great men… further as resistance to the great, and finally as the tools of the great; beyond that, may the devil and statistics take them.”
—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (1874)

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
—MARK TWAIN




PART ONE
THE SOCIAL CALCULUS
Chapter 1. Statistics as Social Science
The Politics of Political Arithmetic
The Numbers of a Dynamic Society
Chapter 2. The Laws That Govern Chaos
Quetelet and the Numerical Regularities of Society
Liberal Politics and Statistical Laws
Chapter 3. From Nature's Urn to the Insurance Office
PART TWO
THE SUPREME LAW OF UNREASON
Chapter 4. The Errors of Art and Nature
Quetelet: Error and Variation
Chapter 5. Social Law and Natural Science
Molecules and Social Physics
Galton and the Reality of Variation
PART THREE
THE SCIENCE OF UNCERTAINTY
Chapter 6. Statistical Law and Human Freedom
The Opponents of Statistics
Statistics and Free Will
The Science of Diversity
Statistik: Between Nature and History
Chapter 7. Time's Arrow and Statistical Uncertainty in Physics and Philosophy
Buckle's Laws and Maxwell's Demon
Boltzmann, Statistics, and Irreversibility
Peirce's Rejection of Necessity
PART FOUR
POLYMATHY AND DISCIPLINE
Chapter 8. The Mathematics of Statistics
Lexis's Index of Dispersion
Edgeworth: Mathematics and Economics
Chapter 9. The Roots of Biometrical Statistics
Galton's Biometrical Analogies
Regression and Correlation
Pearson and Mathematical Biometry

[Doris Raines · Rating 3 out of 5]

YOU BETTER THINK🙇‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

[Mohammad · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read Kolmogrov effects in chance world !