1. Definition and History
Statistics
Definition and History

2. Statistics:
A means by which a set of data may be described and interpreted in a meaningful way.
A method by which data can be analyzed and inferences and conclusions drawn.

3. Statistics is concerned with the collection of data, their description, and their analysis, which often leads to the drawing of conclusions.

4. Two main type of Statistics
Descriptive statistics: The part of statistics that deals with the description and summarization of data.
Inferential statistics: The part of statistics that is concerned with drawing conclusions from data.

5. History of Statistics

6. Origins
Statistics arose from the need of states to collect data on their people and economies, in order to administer them. Its meaning broadened in the early 19th century to include the collection and analysis of data in general. Today statistics is widely employed in government, business, in the natural and social sciences

7. History of Statistics
Statistics has an interesting history of development. Before becoming a science in its modern sense, statistics had a long history of development. Numerical data relating to particular events, were being used already in antiquity

8. Antiquity
The origin of descriptive statistics can be traced to ancient Rome and China, the Babylonians and Egyptians carried censuses in B.C. It is known that 5 thousand years BC a population census took place in China, registration of property was conducted in ancient Rome

9. Ancient Rome
Roman Emperor Augustus (27 B.C.-17 A.D.) conducted surveys on births and deaths of the citizens of the empire as well as the amount of livestock each owned and the crops each harvested. In order to use this information, the Romans had to develop methods of collecting, organizing, and summarizing data

10. Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, censuses of population, household goods and land were conducted. During the fourteenth century, people began keeping records on births, deaths, and accidents in order to determine insurance rates

11. School of Political arithmetic
The first scientific school which was much closer to the modern understanding of statistics was an English school of political arithmetic. Its founders were William Petty ( ) and John Graunt ( )

12. William Petty and John Graunt

13. John Graunt
One of the first demographers. Graunt, along with William Petty, developed early human statistical and census methods that later provided a framework for modern demography. He is credited with producing the first life table, giving probabilities of survival to each age. Graunt is also considered as one of the first experts in epidemiology, since his famous book was concerned mostly with public health statistics

14. John Graunt
John Graunt studied the number of males and females born. He discovered that slightly more males were born than females, but that more males than females died during the first year of life

15. William Petty
An English economist, scientist and philosopher. It is for his theories on economics and his methods of political arithmetic that he is best remembered, however, and he is attributed as having started the philosophy of 'laissez-faire' in relation to government activity

16. William Petty
Petty's only statistical technique is the use of simple averages. He would not be a statistician by today's standards but during his time a statistician was merely one that employed the use of quantitative data. Because obtaining census data was difficult, if not impossible, especially for Ireland, he applied methods of estimation

17. Gottfried Achenwall
Gottfried Achenwall (20 October 1719 – 1 May 1772) was a German philosopher and statistician. He is counted among the inventors of the term “statistics”. He first began to read a new course "statistics" in the University of Göttingen, which explained how the state was arranged

18. Adolphe Quetelet
The next direction of statistical sciences - statistics and mathematics. Among the representatives of this trend a famous Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet ( ) should be noted as a founder of the mean values theory

19. Adolphe Quetelet

20. Adolphe Quetelet
Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. He was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences. Quetelet founded several statistical journals and societies, he was especially interested in creating international cooperation among statisticians

21. Adolphe Quetelet
The new science of probability and statistics was mainly used in astronomy at the time, to get a handle on measurement errors with the method of least squares. Quetelet was among the first who attempted to apply it to social science, planning what he called a "social physics". He was keenly aware of the overwhelming complexity of social phenomena, and the many variables that needed measurement

22. Adolphe Quetelet
His goal was to understand the statistical laws underlying such phenomena as crime rates, marriage rates or suicide rates. He wanted to explain the values of these variables by other social factors. These ideas were rather controversial among other scientists at the time who held that it contradicted a concept of freedom of choice

23. Adolphe Quetelet
Adolphe Quetelet was a great organizer of statistical science and practice. Thanks to his efforts in 1846 there was carried out the first Belgian population census, based on scientific principles of organization and methodology

24. Adolphe Quetelet
He organized the International Statistical Congresses. There were 9 congresses from 1853 till They gathered statisticians of the world to discuss and develop a unified state statistical methodology. Starting from those times national statistical procedures had been conducted by governments of corresponding countries

25. Mathematicians
Mathematical trend in statistics was developed in England by Francis Galton ( ) and Karl Pearson ( ), William Sealy Gosset ( ), better known under the pseudonym Student, Ronald Fisher ( ), Wesley Clair Mitchell ( ) and others

26. Francis Galton

27. Karl Pearson

28. Ronald Fisher

29. Gregor Mendel
Gregor Mendel ( ) used probability and statistics in his studies of heredity at a monastery in Brunn; Sir Francis Galton ( ) did correlation studies using peas, moths, dogs, and humans.

30. Ronald Fisher
Sir Ronald Fisher ( ) developed statistical methods in inferential techniques, experimental design, estimation, and analysis of variance. Many new statistical methods have been developed since 1900, and new techniques in research and statistics are being studied and perfected each year

31. Because of its origins in government and its data-centric world view, statistics is considered to be not a subfield of mathematics but rather a distinct field that uses mathematics. Its mathematical foundations were laid in the 17th and 18th centuries with the development of probability theory

32. The method of least squares was invented around the turn of the 19th century by several authors. Since then new techniques of probability and statistics have been in continual development.
Modern computers have expedited large-scale statistical computation, and have also made possible new methods that would be impractical to perform manually

34. Comment: On Making Statistics Valuable to the Public

35. The birth of statistics
Numerical records are as old as writing. Censuses and government accounts go back to ancient times.
The origin of statistics, around 1800,
came with ambitions to make a science of
the state, of statecraft and with an ideal of
public knowledge. Census records were
no longer secrets of state.

36. Statistics was at first a social science and not a mathematical one
Statistics was at first a social science and not a mathematical one. It was championed by people who hoped the numbers could speak for themselves and would quickly identify the causes of social problems such as crime, suicide, and epidemic disease.

37. Ambitions for statistics
Adolphe Quetelet ( )
wanted statistics to be an
experimental science of
legislation.

38. The power of statistics
A well made statistic is an impassible testimony, above intimidation and seduction alike” (Michel Chevalier, 1860)
Wherever the struggle resurfaces between the champions of the general interest and that of private interest, you will find (statisticians) at our post, armed and ready to march.” (Alfred de Foville, 1892)

39. Statistics and Information
The question of public knowledge of statistics presumes that statistics are a form of information.
The idea of information, argues Yaron Ezrahi, usually assumes that the facts (numbers) are self-explanatory, readily available for direct use by anyone.
Are statistics really transparent? Are their meanings superficially evident?

40. The Public and Science
From “public understanding of science” to “public engagement with science.”
A scientific spirit may be more important than knowledge of particular facts.
Often (notably in the US) members of the public reject what they know to be accepted science (e.g. evolution).

41. Public knowledge of statistics
One of the papers regrets that the public is ignorant of basic numbers (population of Italy, euro/dollar exchange rate, trends of CO2 emissions, etc.)
The other takes the economists’ view that people will know what’s in their interest to know, based on costs and benefits to them.

42. A little knowledge could be a dangerous thing
Numbers circulate widely during elections. They also are manipulated in various ways.
Hypothetically, a president or prime minister might take measures to improve some number in the short term (just before an election) knowing quite well that this will create problems in the longer term.

43. It’s good if the public knows more about statistics
But it may be just as important for them to learn to take numbers with a grain of salt…
…And to know as much as possible about what the statisics mean.

44. Thank you