Annotated Readings in the History of Statistics

This book provides a selection of pioneering papers or extracts ranging from Pascal (1654) to R.A. Fisher (1930). The authors' annotations put the articles in perspective for the modern reader. A special feature of the book is the large number of translations, nearly all made by the authors. The selected articles vary considerably in difficulty, some requiring only a basic understanding of statistical concepts, whereas others surprise by their early sophistication in "classical" statistics.There are several reasons for studying the history of statistics: intrinsic interest in how the field of statistics developed, learning from often brilliant ideas and not reinventing the wheel, and livening up general courses in statistics by reference to important contributors.Herbert A. David is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Statistics, Iowa State University and served as Department Head from 1972 to 184. He was Editor of Biometric from 1967 to 1972 and President of Biometric Society for 1982-1983. His publications include books on Order Statistics (Wiley 1970, 1981) and The Method of Paired Comparisons (Griffin 1963, 1988). Apart from articles in these two areas he has written on statistical inference, experimental designs, competing risks, and the history of statistics. He received a Ph.D. in statistics from University College London in 1953.A.W.F. Edwards is Reader in Biometry in the University of Cambridge. He was President of the British Region of the Biometric Society in 1992-1994 and is Chairman of the Christiaan Huygens Committee for the History of Statistics of the International Statistical Institute. His publications include the books Likelihood (Cambridge University Press 1972, Johns Hopkins University Press 1992), Foundations of Mathematical Genetics (Cambridge University Press 1977, 2000), and Pascal's Arithmetical Triangle (Griffin 1987). He holds the degrees of Ph.D. and Sc.D. from Cambridge University.

Contents

• The Introduction of the Concept of Expectation--Pascal (1654)
• The First Example of a Formal Test of Significance -- Arbuthnott (1712)
• Coincidences and the Method of Inclusion and Exclusion -- Montmort (1713), N. Bernoulli (1713), and Moivre (1718)
• The Determination of the Accuracy of Observations -- Gauss (1816)
• The Introduction of Asymptotic Relative Efficiency -- Laplace (1818)
• The Logistic Growth Curve -- Verhulst (1845)
• Goodness-of-Fit Statistics: The Distributions in Normal Samples of (a) the Sum of Squares About the Population Mean, (b) the Circular Sum of Squares of Successive Differences, and (c) the Circular Serial Correlation Coeffient -- E. Abbe (1863)
• The Distribution of the Sample Variance Under Normality -- Helmert (1876)
• The Random Walk and Its Fractal Limiting Form -- Venn (1888)
• Estimating a Binomial Probability Using the Likelihood Function -- Thiele (1889)
• Yule's Paradox (""Simpson's Paradox"") -- Yule (1903)
• Beginnings of Extreme-Value Theory -- Bortkiewicz (1922) and Mises (1923)
• The Evaluation of Tournament Outcomes -- Zermelo (1929)
• The Origin of Confidence Limits -- Fisher (1930)