Statistics: The Main Players, Events, and RepercussionsSusan McCourtBristol Community CollegeFall River, MA AMATYC 2012

Name GameHonors Section of Elementary Statistics course

Ask questionsComments welcome!

Agenda

Brought mathematical rigor to biologyRealized uniqueness of fingerprints,

designed methods to classify and identify them

Set up a biometrical lab in LondonDiscovered “coefficient of correlation”

first using the word correlation in this sense

Discovered “regression to the mean” Invented bean machine to

demonstrate the Central Limit Theorem

Eugenicist coined the term and the phrase “Nature vs. Nurture”

Cousin of Charles DarwinDevised the first weather map……

Sir Francis Galton

Born 1857 and in 1870s left England to study political science in Germany

1880s published The Grammar of Science Worked in Galton’s Biometrical Lab in

London Looked at distributions of numbers and

said ALL “skew distributions” can be described by the mean, standard deviation, symmetry and kurtosis (later called the parameters)

Proposed the radical idea that the observed was random – the distribution is real

With Galton and Raphael Welton founded the journal Biometrika

Considered a prominent “freethinker” and lectured on suffrage and Karl Marx

Refused a knighthood in 1935 Changed his name to honor Karl Marx…..

Karl Pearson

Oxford Graduate in Chemistry and Math

Recruited by Arthur Guinness and Son: applied to picking best yielding varieties of barley

His data modeled by Poisson Distribution – NOT a Pearson Skew Distribution

Leave of absence to study with Pearson

Discovered Pearson’s need for large samples not necessary (and usually not available)

Used ratios of estimated values of µ and σ

Published as “Student” about this t-distribution in Biometrika

Friend of both Pearson and Fisher …..

William Sealy Gossett

English statistician, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and geneticist

Childhood vision impairment - deep geometric sense

Calculated a geometric solution to difficult unsolved problem by Pearson

Pearson and friends froze him out Joined the Eugenics movement in 1917 –

contrast with Pearson

Published “Statistical Methods for Research Workers” - methods, not proofs

Agricultural Experiments at Rothamsted produced Studies in Crop Variation I-VI showing original tools for data analysis and applications

Developed time-series experiments, randomized controlled experiments, analysis of variance (ANOVA), analysis of covariance, degrees of freedom…..

(Ronald Aylmer) R.A. Fisher

Born in 1902 in London, graduated from Imperial college with a degree in Physics

Studied for his MS in statistics under Pearson at the Galton Lab and Fisher at Rothamsted

Worked at the British Cotton Industry Research Association

Examining thread under a microscope, discovered the fiber is only as strong as it’s weakest thread

Pioneered extreme value theory Invented the Random Number Table Found equation to connect distribution of

extremes to distribution of sample data, later solved by R.A. Fisher…

(Leonard Henry Cabot)

L.H.C. Tippett

Mathematician and political writer Graduated from the University of Munich

shortly before World War I Late 1920s-early 1930s, new faculty at the

University of Heidelberg, saw a friend attacked and killed by the Brown Shirts Nazis. Court found insufficient evidence to convict.

In 1922, published Four Years of Political Murder, documenting dozens of cases

In 1928, he published Causes of Political Murder, documenting more cases.

One of the 33 signers of Dringender Appel – “Urgent Call for Unity” appeal to defeat the Nazis

Nazis forced him out of his position and he settled in France. In 1940 escaped to the U.S. and taught at New School, Columbia University

1958 published Statistics of Extremes ….

Emil J. Gumbel

US Biologist born in Springfield, Ohio Entomologist hired by USDA developing

pesticides With Fisher developed an iterative

approach to finding maximum likelihood estimates in the probit method of bioassay: studies potency based on effects on living matter (probit = bimodal)

Fired during the depression for political reasons

Worked in Leningrad Later rumored a spy, and interrogated by

committee from Leningrad Hurriedly escaped to Riga Joined the Communist Labor Union of

Laboratory workers (as did all), in the 1950s was denied access back to United States ….

Chester (Ittner) Bliss

The Rise of Totalitarian States

Stalin terror cut off Russian mathematicians

Hitler’s racial views decimated Universities Nazis went to U of Warsaw and murdered

all Russian mathematicians “hid” in pure

math Many promising students perished

The Rise of Totalitarian States

The War Effort

Because “random variable” translates in Russian to “accidental magnitude” it was considered an insult to Marx.

Growth in Cryptanalysis and Stochastic Processes

Birth of Operations Research: embraced by the British and the United States

Under Russian planning the farmlands of Ukraine and Belorussia were ruined while quality control was increasing output in the U.S., European and some Asian farms

The War Effort

Back to the Statisticians….

Born in Finland in 1914 (which was part of the Russian Empire), family moved to Denmark, then Berlin.

1933 finished H.S. and studied math in Berlin as faculty were fleeing

Attended Bieberbach Lecture dealt with “Aryan” and “Non-Aryan” (Jewish) mathematics.

1940, graduated and took a job in an actuarial institute.

1945 fled with his mother – his father captured, accused as a spy. 1946 – came to U.S. with his mother

One of the founders of nonparametric statistics

Contributed the idea and basic results on U-statistics (U for unbiased, important in estimation theory)

Wassily Hoeffding

Born in Poland – descended from a long line of nobles and military heroes

Promising student when WWI erupted. Forced to study at Kharkov U

1921 returned to Poland in a program of repatriation of POWs

Studied in London and Paris with Pearson and Emile Borel

Proposed and studies randomized experiments in 1923

1928 worked at Biometrical lab in London and befriended Egon Pearson and letters between them 1928-33 published, resulting in the basic ideas of Hypothesis Testing, “Power” of a test

Appendix to a paper named and used Confidence Intervals

Started statistics program at UC Berkeley Brought Blackwell to Berkeley Helped many female statisticians find

positions and published with many female mathematicians…

Jerzey Neyman

Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov

Celebrated statistician and social reformer Founder of the British Nursing program Worked to abolish laws harsh to women

and to expand acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce

Self-educated statistician

Used data, charts and graphs to force the British army to maintain field hospitals and supply nursing and medical care to soldiers in the field

Invented the Pie Chart to display her message

First female member of the Royal Statistical Society

Florence Nightengale

Named after Florence Nightingale Applied to be an actuary at an insurance

company and told she was the most qualified, but did not get the job because of her gender

Many similar disappointments, even being told there were no toilet facilities for women

“Crashed” her way in to met Karl Pearson, who liked her and gave her a job where she calculated distribution of the Correlation Coefficient using a Brunsviga

Pearson made sure her scholarship was extended and encouraged her

During WWII worked predicting effects of bombs, helping London prepare for the Blitz

Wrote “Combinatorial Chance” and “Games, God and Gambling” classic probability books

On Faculty of UC Berkeley and succeeded Neyman as chair

F.N. David

American who attended Douglas College (Women’s branch of Rutgers)

PhD from Tufts Was a stay at home mother until youngest

went to grade school Worked for the Bureau of Labor Statistics Became in charge of the Consumer Price

Index and oversaw its overhaul First woman to be named Commissioner

of Labor Statistics in 1991…

Janet Norwood

Homeschooled in New Bedford, MA BS, MA from Brown in Chemistry PhD from Princeton at 24 His lemma - stated conditions behind use

of logic in Problem Solving 1950s – developed Fast Fourier Transform

– a smoothing technique for data Developed stem-leaf plot, boxplot, and

more Coined the words “software” and “bit”

John Tukey

Questions? Comments? Material from this presentation primarily

taken from The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century by David Salsburg (2001, W.H. Freeman)

My email: susan.mccourt@bristolcc.edu

In Conclusion

American mathematician and statistician Contribute to foundations of analysis of

variance, data analysis, experimental design and methodology

Headed for University of Iowa, but ended up in Iowa State and created the first statistics laboratory

Worked with underprepared students for 6 years before he created a statistics course

Created the first Statistics Department Also promoted the work of women, helping

them get positions…

George Snedecor

Born in Jewish slum of Whitechapel London December 1916

Genius child, entered Cambridge at 19 and 6yrs later earned his PhD

Used Bayesian methods for cryptanalysis for English Government

Important figure in adoption of computers in code breaking

? IJ (Jack) Good

Homeschooled in New Bedford, MA BS, MA from Brown in Chemistry PhD from Princeton at 24 His lemma - stated conditions behind use of logic

in Problem Solving 1950s – developed Fast Fourier Transform – a

smoothing technique for data Developed stem-leaf plot, boxplot, and more Coined the words “software” and “bit” Proposed box-shape counting technique ? John Tukey

Born in Sioux City Iowa in 1900 Attended U of Wyoming Masters from U of Colorado, PhD Yale Worked for USDA for 12 years Then ran seminars on Quality Control for Industry 1947 invited to be expert on sampling methods for

Supreme Allied Commander Douglas MacArthur Invited to teach statistical methods by Ichiro Ishikawa

to a broad range of Japanese industries 1980 NBC Documentary Highly critical of hypothesis testing – said it mattered

how significant the difference is ? W. Edward Deming

English amateur mathematician, 18th Century

Said all probability is conditional Looked at symmetry of the conditional

probability formula His work used for estimating parameters of

distributions His work considered “heresy” during the

early years of the 20h century Worked on a Hierarchical Model and a

Personal probability Model…..

Reverend Thomas Bayes

Studied chemistry at a technical college before being drafted into WWII

Put in a chemical defense experiment station, looking for antidotes to chemical gases

Read books to learn the statistics, then attended University College Masters and Doctorate

At Princeton, led the Statistical Techniques Research Group Used ‘robust’ for useful methods found even if a distribution

doesn’t meet initial conditions Showed the average is heavily influenced even by a single

outlier Box-Cox Transformations used in cancer research,

econometrics, and agriculture ? George Box

Interested in studying Applied Mathematics when it wasn’t popular to do so

On the faculty of Princeton, became editor of Annals of Mathematical Statistics, raising the standards of publication

Effective mentor of many graduate students Went to work for Educational Testing Service, helped

formulate sampling procedures and scoring techniques Consulted with the Office of Naval Research and set

up the Statistical Research Group – Princeton and The National Defense Research Council

? Samuel S. Wilks

Born to Greek immigrant in NYC Loved Martin Gardener puzzles, later met MG Ran away at 14 to follow a traveling magician

for 2 years Was a traveling magician until 24 At 26 earned his Bachelors from CCNY PhD from Harvard at 29 Studied the structure of the computer and of

mathematical statistics, data clusters in lower dimensions

? Persi Hiaconis