This lively collection of essays examines in witty detail the history of some of the concepts involved in bringing statistical argument "to the table," and some of the pitfalls that have been encountered. The topics range from seventeenth-century medicine and the circulation of blood, to the cause of the Great Depression and the effect of the California gold discoveries of 1848 upon price levels, to the determinations of the shape of the Earth and the speed of light, to the meter of Virgil's poetry and the prediction of the Second Coming of Christ. The title essay tells how the statistician Karl Pearson came to issue the challenge to put "statistics on the table" to the economists Marshall, Keynes, and Pigou in 1911. The 1911 dispute involved the effect of parental alcoholism upon children, but the challenge is general and timeless: important arguments require evidence, and quantitative evidence requires statistical evaluation. Some essays examine deep and subtle statistical ideas such as the aggregation and regression paradoxes; others tell of the origin of the Average Man and the evaluation of fingerprints as a forerunner of the use of DNA in forensic science. Several of the essays are entirely nontechnical; all examine statistical ideas with an ironic eye for their essence and what their history can tell us about current disputes.
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From Library Journal
Stigler (Univ. of Chicago) is an expert on the history of statistics. His book is not a complete survey of the subject but a well-selected collection of 22 essaysAsome involving major central mathematical ideas, others of a more popular natureAthat vividly explore a number of interesting topics about a subject with so many diverse applications. Stigler covers mainly European and American contributions to the field of statistics from the 1700s to the 1960s and 1970s. Other works by the same author related to this topic are American Contributions to Mathematical Statistics in the Nineteenth Century and The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900. Recommended for large public libraries, academic libraries, and specialized collections in the history of sciences and the history of statistics.ANestor Osorio, Northern Illinois Univ. Libs., DeKalb
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
In Statistics on the Table, statistician and historian of science Stephen M. Stigler collects and revises 22 of his scholarly and often witty essays from the past 25 years reflecting the combination of detective work and statistical thinking that characterize his research.
--Valerie M. Chase (American Scientist )
Mainstream statistical topics (e.g. maximum likelihood, degrees of freedom, regression toward the mean) and various statistical writers (particularly Karl Pearson, Jevons, Edgeworth, Galton, Bayes, Gauss and Cauchy) are discussed, as well as some historical curiosities...Any biometrician should find plenty in it to fascinate, enlighten and entertain.
--D. A. Preece (Biometrics 20001201)
Stigler's useful, readable, and valuable book, with its numerous illuminating illustrations and plentiful insights, is an authoritative and definitive work in the early development of mathematical statistics, and a delightful examination in witty detail of the contributions of Gauss, Laplace, deMoivre, Bayes, Galton, Lexis, James Bernoulli, Quetelet, Edgeworth, and others. With humor and conviction, Stigler describes vividly the events leading to the emergence of statistical concepts and methods.
--D. V. Chopra (Choice )
A well-selected collection of 22 essays--some involving major central mathematical ideas, others of a more popular nature--that vividly explore a number of interesting topics about a subject with so many diverse applications.
--Nestor Osorio (Library Journal )
[This book's] title comes from a letter written to the London Times in 1910 by the statistician Karl Pearson, exhorting critics of one of his studies to set aside mere opinions and put their 'statistics on the table.' Stigler uses this and other stories to relate the history of his subject, describing along the way the idiosyncratic individuals who have brought logic and mathematical rigor to a frequently confusing area of analysis. The reader who is not alarmed by the occasional graph or simple equation will find this a penetrating and entertaining account. (Science News )
[This is] a lively and controversial history...well captured in the second major book on the history of statistics by Stephen M. Stigler...In reading this collection, I was struck with the amount of scholarship and thought that went into each of the essays and with the liveliness and wit of the author's writing style.
--Paul S. Levy (Perspectives in Biology and Medicine )
It is great to have these essays collected in one volume . . . Irony and self-referencing humor abound in this book, making it entertaining; and clear exposition, thorough research, and insightful descriptions of key developments and personalities make it very much worth your time and money.
--Russell V. Lenth, American Statistician
Stephen Stigler's 1986 book The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900 was greeted with enthusiasm by both staticians and historians for its penetrating overview of developments in probabilistically oriented statistics before 1900. This new volume, too, will be of interest to both statisticians and historians…What is the same in this book-or, indeed, even better-is the sparkling and witty style…This book should without question have a place on the bookshelf of every person interested in the history of statistics.
--Ida H. Stamhuis (ISIS )
If you have an interest in the history of statistics and also history in relationship to statistics, you will want this book. The standard for scholarship within the statistical community has never been any higher than it is here. (Technometrics )
--Valerie M. Chase (American Scientist )
Mainstream statistical topics (e.g. maximum likelihood, degrees of freedom, regression toward the mean) and various statistical writers (particularly Karl Pearson, Jevons, Edgeworth, Galton, Bayes, Gauss and Cauchy) are discussed, as well as some historical curiosities...Any biometrician should find plenty in it to fascinate, enlighten and entertain.
--D. A. Preece (Biometrics 20001201)
Stigler's useful, readable, and valuable book, with its numerous illuminating illustrations and plentiful insights, is an authoritative and definitive work in the early development of mathematical statistics, and a delightful examination in witty detail of the contributions of Gauss, Laplace, deMoivre, Bayes, Galton, Lexis, James Bernoulli, Quetelet, Edgeworth, and others. With humor and conviction, Stigler describes vividly the events leading to the emergence of statistical concepts and methods.
--D. V. Chopra (Choice )
A well-selected collection of 22 essays--some involving major central mathematical ideas, others of a more popular nature--that vividly explore a number of interesting topics about a subject with so many diverse applications.
--Nestor Osorio (Library Journal )
[This book's] title comes from a letter written to the London Times in 1910 by the statistician Karl Pearson, exhorting critics of one of his studies to set aside mere opinions and put their 'statistics on the table.' Stigler uses this and other stories to relate the history of his subject, describing along the way the idiosyncratic individuals who have brought logic and mathematical rigor to a frequently confusing area of analysis. The reader who is not alarmed by the occasional graph or simple equation will find this a penetrating and entertaining account. (Science News )
[This is] a lively and controversial history...well captured in the second major book on the history of statistics by Stephen M. Stigler...In reading this collection, I was struck with the amount of scholarship and thought that went into each of the essays and with the liveliness and wit of the author's writing style.
--Paul S. Levy (Perspectives in Biology and Medicine )
It is great to have these essays collected in one volume . . . Irony and self-referencing humor abound in this book, making it entertaining; and clear exposition, thorough research, and insightful descriptions of key developments and personalities make it very much worth your time and money.
--Russell V. Lenth, American Statistician
Stephen Stigler's 1986 book The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900 was greeted with enthusiasm by both staticians and historians for its penetrating overview of developments in probabilistically oriented statistics before 1900. This new volume, too, will be of interest to both statisticians and historians…What is the same in this book-or, indeed, even better-is the sparkling and witty style…This book should without question have a place on the bookshelf of every person interested in the history of statistics.
--Ida H. Stamhuis (ISIS )
If you have an interest in the history of statistics and also history in relationship to statistics, you will want this book. The standard for scholarship within the statistical community has never been any higher than it is here. (Technometrics )
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By Juntung Wu
Format:Hardcover
Professor Stephen M. Stigler has written a very worthwhile textbook on the history of statistics, or, more accurately, the development of statistics in modern Western civilization. This book is not a strict chronology of the development of statistical science: it is more of a collection of profiles of profound, significant events that shaped the scientific community and the World at large.
Readers will be amazed by the author's knowledge and insights in this special corner of historical research, and can also look forward to a presentation of compelling stories and gripping dramas, complemented by the author's trademark wit and humour.
Given its position as one of the leading college text books in the history of statistics, this book is perhaps less accessible to a general audience compared with the recent crop of "popular science" books such as "Fermat's Enigma"; but any learned readers should nevertheless find this a highly informative and worthwhile book.
Format:Hardcover
Stephen Stigler is a well-known statistician and author. He is also one of the few statisticians to do intense research on historical facts related to the development of the field. He has written other fine books on the history of statistics. This book concentrates on stories in the history of statistics where statistical analyses were done that had an impact and the statisticians laid their cards on the table. Too often, even today claims are made that require statistical evidence but the evidence is lacking, or some of the assumptions are hidden. Starting with the controversy between Karl Pearson and the Cambridge economists, Stigler shows how important it is to bring out the assumptions and methods used to make the case convincing and how not to fall into subtle traps. He also points out that attribution of a method to a person does not usually go to the discoverer. He calls it Stigler's Law of Eponymy. Examples include Chebychev's inequality discovered earlier by Bienayme and the Gaussian distribution associated with Gauss but known earlier by De Moivre and Laplace. He also includes a chapter questioning whether Thomas Bayes was the discoverer of Bayes's Theorem.
Well written and thoroughly researched, this is a great reference book on aspects of the history of statistics. This book is typical of what we have learned to expect from Stigler.
Format:Hardcover
These essays examine some of the basic concepts involved in bringing statistical argument to the table, and considers the history of statistics and their methods and use. Essential to any college-level math course on the topic, Statistics on the Table probes how statisticians link statistics to social issues and daily life, providing essays which examine statistical ideas and their impact.
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