IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jorssa/v173y2010i3p469-482.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Darwin, Galton and the Statistical Enlightenment

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen M. Stigler

Abstract

Summary. On September 10th, 1885, Francis Galton ushered in a new era of Statistical Enlightenment with an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Aberdeen. In the process of solving a puzzle that had lain dormant in Darwin's Origin of Species, Galton introduced multivariate analysis and paved the way towards modern Bayesian statistics. The background to this work is recounted, including the recognition of a failed attempt by Galton in 1877 as providing the first use of a rejection sampling algorithm for the simulation of a posterior distribution, and the first appearance of a proper Bayesian analysis for the normal distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen M. Stigler, 2010. "Darwin, Galton and the Statistical Enlightenment," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(3), pages 469-482, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:173:y:2010:i:3:p:469-482
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-985X.2010.00643.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-985X.2010.00643.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-985X.2010.00643.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:173:y:2010:i:3:p:469-482. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rssssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.