Statistical Science

In this note we briefly survey the evolution of statistical science during the last century, paying particular attention to its principal motivations: its applications, the mathematical theories that underpin it, and more recently, the developments of electronic computing that assist its implementation. The interactions among these aspects are shown to be complex and of direct benefit to the subject, despite some of the tensions that are generated (e.g. between proponents of theory and applications). It is argued that this multifaceted advance is a distinguishing feature of statistics among other mathematical sciences, and that it is the source of both its strengths (for example, its role as the mathematical tool for analysis and interpretation of experimental and observational data) and its weaknesses (in particular, statistics has no natural home in any particular scientific discipline, perhaps including statistics itself). As a result, the future development of statistical science has already been taken partly out of the hands of statisticians themselves. From some viewpoints this step in the evolutionary path represents a return to the roots of statistics, which are exceptionally varied; they lie in astronomy, agriculture, anthropology, zoology, psychology, economics and mathematics, to name only a few. The step, and the explosive growth of computing power, will mean major changes in the types of methodology that are developed in the future, and in the way statistics is practised and taught. However, the inevitability of the transition suggests that little purpose is served in arguing the rights and wrongs of the situation. Overall, the present state of statistics is surely a healthy one for future development, just as statistics’ multitude of origins provided a strong foundation in the subject’s early years.