Alain Desrosières

The History of Statistics as a Genre: Styles of Writing and Social Uses

To what extent does the history of statistics belong to the literary genre of “social constructions”? Does this genre include the development of national statistics? This brief historical summary of selected steps in the social uses of history and, more recently, of the history of science, can be helpful for examining the different ways in which the history of statistics has been written and used. It includes five sections: The First Period of National Statistical Histories (1800-1920); The Difficulties of Statistical Internationalism; The History of the Mathematization of Statistics; The New Wave of National-Statistics History (since 1975); The Bielefeld Group and the “Probabilistic Revolution”.

Comparing the Incomparable: The Sociology of Statistics

From his earliest publications, Cournot broke from tradition with his predecessors in applying mathematical modelling to the social sphere. Consequently, he was the first to affirm the mathematization of social phenomena as an essential principle. The fecundity of Cournot’s works stems not only from this departure, but also from a richness that irrigated the social sciences of the twentieth century. In this collection, the contributors – including two Nobel laureates in economics – highlight Cournot’s profound innovativeness and continued relevance in the areas of industrial economics, mathematical economics, market competition, game theory and epistemology of probability and statistics. Each of the seven authors reminds us of the force and modernity of Cournot’s thought as a mathematician, historian of the sciences, philosopher and, not least, as an economist.

Statistics, History of

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 22, pp. 15080–15085,