The history of statistics can be said to start around 1749 although, over time, there have been changes to the interpretation of the word statistics. In early times, the meaning was restricted to information about states. This was later extended to include all collections of information of all types, and later still it was extended to include the analysis and interpretation of such data. In modern terms, "statistics" means both sets of collected information, as in national accounts and temperature records, and analytical work which requires statistical inference.
Statistical activities are often associated with models expressed using probabilities, and require probability theory for them to be put on a firm theoretical basis: see History of probability.
A number of statistical concepts have had an important impact on a wide range of sciences. These include the design of experiments and approaches to statistical inference such as Bayesian inference, each of which can be considered to have their own sequence in the development of the ideas underlying modern statistics.
Read more about History Of Statistics: Introduction, Etymology, Origins in Probability, Design of Experiments, Inference, Statistics Today, Important Contributors To Statistics
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or statistics:
“The reverence for the Scriptures is an element of civilization, for thus has the history of the world been preserved, and is preserved.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“We ask for no statistics of the killed,
For nothing political impinges on
This single casualty, or all those gone,
Missing or healing, sinking or dispersed,
Hundreds of thousands counted, millions lost.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)