RESUMO
William Petty's work has usually been regarded as an epistemic break in the history of statistical and politico-economic thought. In this paper, I argue that Petty's statistical notions stemmed from the natural-historical techniques he originally implemented to manage the Down Survey. Following Bacon, who viewed the description of trades as a paramount branch of natural history, Petty approached the art of surveying itself as an object of natural-historical analysis. He partitioned the surveying work into individual tasks and implemented a meticulous division of labour, employing hundreds of disbanded soldiers as surveyors and using questionnaires to calibrate the responses of his 'instruments', as he called his specialized workers. By borrowing these methods from natural history to organize surveying work, Petty was able to conceptualize Ireland as a political body defined by tables of aggregate data. I then compare the Down Survey with John Graunt's observations on the bills of mortality to show that both are representative of a particular style of natural history, aimed at describing the natural and political state of a circumscribed territory. I close by considering other manifestations of 'territorial natural history', indicating a continuity between this research tradition and the appearance of statistics in the British Isles.
Assuntos
História Natural , História Natural/história , Irlanda , Estatística como Assunto/história , História do Século XIX , História do Século XVIII , PolíticaAssuntos
Disciplinas das Ciências Biológicas , Ensaios Clínicos como Assunto/história , Reumatologia/história , Estatística como Assunto/história , Disciplinas das Ciências Biológicas/história , Disciplinas das Ciências Biológicas/estatística & dados numéricos , Ensaios Clínicos como Assunto/métodos , Educação Médica/história , História do Século XX , Humanos , Reino Unido , Estados UnidosRESUMO
TITLE: L'épidémiologie entre le terrain des épidémies et l'approche populationnelle, XIX-XXe siècle. ABSTRACT: L'émergence d'une épidémiologie moderne est fréquemment associée au basculement de la discipline, d'une science des épidémies vers une science des populations. L'avènement et le développement d'une épidémiologie fondée sur une approche statistique et mathématique n'exclut cependant pas la persistance d'une épidémiologie sur le terrain des épidémies, dans le sillage de l'hygiène publique et de la bactériologie triomphante du tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles. De plus, l'histoire de l'épidémiologie ne saurait être cantonnée à une histoire de savoirs scientifiques ou de savoir-faire techniques et organisationnels. Elle doit intégrer, plus sans doute encore que d'autres branches de la médecine, les dimensions économiques et politiques qui participèrent à l'institutionnalisation et au développement de la discipline et à son inscription dans les processus de décision.
Assuntos
Epidemias/história , Epidemiologia/história , Comércio/história , Doenças Transmissíveis/epidemiologia , Doenças Transmissíveis/história , Métodos Epidemiológicos , França , História do Século XIX , História do Século XX , Humanos , Higiene Militar/história , Saúde Pública/história , Fatores de Risco , Determinantes Sociais da Saúde/história , Estatística como Assunto/históriaRESUMO
The Elizabeth W. Jones Award for Excellence in Education recognizes an individual or group that has had significant, sustained impact on genetics education at any level, from K-12 through graduate school and beyond. Bruce Weir (University of Washington) is the 2019 recipient in recognition of his work training thousands of researchers in the rigorous use of statistical analysis methods for genetic and genomic data. His contributions fall into three categories: the acclaimed Summer Institute in Statistical Genetics, which has been held continuously for 23 years and has trained > 10,000 researchers worldwide; the popular graduate-level textbook Genetic Data Analysis; and the training of a growing number of forensic geneticists during the rise of DNA evidence in courts around the world.
Assuntos
Distinções e Prêmios , Genética/história , Estatística como Assunto/história , História do Século XXI , Estados UnidosRESUMO
The Student-t-test, one of the most used statistical tests in medicine, was developed by a beer brewer. From around 1900, the Irish Guinness brewery started recruiting scientists for the position of brewer in order to apply science to the production of beer in large quantities while maintaining consistency in terms of quality. One of these brewers was mathematician and chemist William Sealy Gosset (1876-1937). He developed statistical methods to deal with small sample surveys. Gosset's methods, and the accompanying t-distribution tables, enabled Guinness to take intelligent decisions about which ingredients to use, allowing them to produce high-quality beer that consistently tasted the same. Gosset wanted to publish his findings in scientific journals; however, the Guinness brewery was unwilling, as this could jeopardise their advantage over other breweries. They came to a compromise, in which Guinness allowed Gosset to publish his findings, as long as he used a pseudonym: Student. The Student's t-distribution remains one of the cornerstones of modern statistics.