History Of Statistics

Statistics

the science of conducting studies to collect, organize, summarize, analyze, and draw conclusions from data

Status

Latin, meaning state

Statista

Italian, meaning statesman

Origin of Descriptive Statistics

data collection methods used in censuses taken by the Babylonians and Egyptians between 4500 and 3000 B.C.

John Graunt

published his book on population growth, Natural and political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality, which is where inferential statistics originated from.

Edmund Halley

published the first complete mortality tables. (Insurance companies use mortality tables to determine life insurance rates)

Pierre-Simon de Laplace

developed the Laplace

method of estimating the population of a

country.

Karl Pearson

used the insight provided by the descriptive analysis based on moments and histograms to draw inferences on the underlying family of distributions.

Ronald Fisher

introduced a systematic methodology of data collection through design of experiments as well as ideas in the theory of estimation.

Jerzy Neyman and Egon Pearson

developed the theory of formal hypothesis testing.

John Tukey

invented a variety of techniques for looking more effectively at data.