Statisticians

"Society prepares the crime, and the guilty are only the instruments by which it is executed."

"The influence of Quetelet's ideas spread throughout the sciences, even to the physical sciences. The two primary founders of the modern kinetic theory of gases, based on considerations of probability, were James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann. Both acknowledged their debt to Quetelet. ...historians generally consider the influence of the natural sciences on the social sciences, whereas in the case of Maxwell and Boltzmann, there is an influence of the social sciences on the natural sciences, as Theodore Porter has shown."

"The most important of Quetelet's statistical principles... include the conception of the Average Man as a type, the significance for social science of the regularities found in the moral actions of man, and the theoretical basis of the distribution of group phenomena about their type."

"Quetelet published quite a number of poems, and until the age of thirty he continued to exercise his poetical talents as pastime and relief from his scientific studies. His poems were of a serious tone, but were well received by both public and critics. We may mention here an Essai sur la romance, which Quetelet brought out in 1823. ...This essay, together with translations, in prose and in verse, of German, English, Italian, and Spanish romances, shows Quetelet's wide acquaintance at that early age with the various European literatures."

"As a man of science he was admired; in political affairs he was respected; in private life he was beloved."

"In the history of natural science, Quetelet will, with good right, be placed in the rank of Pascal, Leibnitz, Bernoulli, Laplace, Poisson, and such scientists."

"The mere enumeration of his contributions to pure and mixed mathematics would occupy a very large space, and from their intrinsic merit, patient and conscientious research and earnest regard for truth, would alone have secured him a foremost place among the distinguished and scientific men of the present century."

"In principle, wrote Quetelet, the courage or criminality of a real person could be established... but it was wholly unnecessary for social physics. Instead, the physicist need only arrange that courageous and criminal acts be recorded throughout society, as the latter already were, and then the average man could be assigned a "penchant for crime" equal to the number of criminal acts committed divided by the population. In this way, a set of discrete acts by distinct individuals was transformed into a continuous magnitude... an attribute of the average man."

"Maxwell... mastered electricity and magnetism, light and heat, pretty much mopping up all the major areas of physics beyond those that Newton had... taken care of—gravitation and the laws of motion. ...Maxwell detected an essential shortcoming in Newton's laws of motion, too. They worked... for macroscopic objects, like cannonballs and rocks. But what about the submicroscopic molecules from which such objects were made? ...Newton's laws ...did you no good because you could not possibly trace the motion of an individual molecule ...Maxwell applied the sort of statistical thinking that Quetelet had promoted."

"Maxwell probably first encountered Quetelet in an article by... John Herschel... (...familiar with Quetelet as a fellow astronomer). Later, in 1857, Maxwell read a newly published book by... Henry Thomas Buckle. Buckle, himself clearly influenced by Quetelet, believed that science could discover the "laws of the human mind" and that human actions are a part of "one vast system of universal order." ...Though Maxwell found Buckle's book "bumptious," he recognized it as a source of original ideas, and the statistical reasoning Buckle applied to society seemed just the thing... needed to deal with molecular motion."

"No other work in the English language contains such an extensive and succinct account of the different branches of physics or exhibits such a general knowledge of the whole field in so small a compass."

"Men in general are very slow to enter into what is reckoned a new thing; and there seems to be a very universal as well as great reluctance to undergo the drudgery of acquiring information that seems not to be absolutely necessary."

"All those things that make a nation richer, stronger, or more happy; or that tend to exalt national character, but that will not pay individuals, deserve public encouragement."

"The nature of this trade, certainly not the most honourable in the world, affords room for much investigation and remark in a moral or humane point of view: in a political or commercial light it is perhaps less conspicuously an object of attention. It consists chiefly of commodities that are considered as holding a first rate place in the animal and the mineral world, for which in return the Africans receive the most rascally articles that the ingenuity of Europeans has found means to produce. In return to our fellow creatures, for gold, and for ivory, we exchange the basest of those articles that are suited to the taste or the fancy of a despicable set of barbarians. Whether the spirituous liquirs or the fire-arms that are sent there are most calculated for the destruction of the purchasers, might become a question not very easy to determine. The noxious quality of the one is at least equalled by the danger of attending the use of the other. There does not seem to be that regard to honour in this trade, which ought to make part of the nice character of the English merchant, unimpeachable, unimpeached, upon the 'Change of London or of Amsterdam. It seems as if we kept our honour for ourselves, and that with those barbarians (who are more our inferiors in address and cunning, than perhaps in any thing else) no honour, humanity, or equity, were at all necessary."

"Such is the disposition of men, that we value what is speculative and precarious, more than what is safe and beneficial."

"Italy is, after France and perhaps in the same degree, the land in which love of country has the deepest roots in the hearts of its inhabitants. The fact is that perhaps nowhere else has nature been so prodigal with its enchantments and seductions. Therefore, although Italy has been, since the fall of the Caesars, the object of European covetousness, the eternal battlefield of powerful neighbors, and the theatre of the fiercest and most prolonged civil wars, her children have always refused to leave her. Save for some commercial colonies hastily thrown upon the shores of Asia by Genoa and Venice, history has not, in fact, recorded in Italy any important outward movement of population."

"From the exposition of facts... we infer that bloodletting has had very little influence on the progress of pneumonitis, of erysipelas of the face, and of angina tonsillaris, in the cases under my observation; that its influence has not been more evident in the cases bled copiously and repeatedly, than in those bled only once and to a small amount; that, we do not at once arrest inflammations, as is too often fondly imagined; that, in cases where appears to be otherwise, it is undoubtedly owing, either to an error in diagnosis, or to the fact that the bloodletting was practised at an advanced period of the disease, when it had nearly run its course; that, it would be well, nevertheless, in inflammations of imminent hazard, pneumonitis, for instance, to try whether a first bleeding sufficient to produce syncope, from twenty-five to thirty ounces or more, would not be attended with greater success; and finally that, wherever I have been able to compare the effect of general, with that of local bleeding by leeches, the superiority of the former has appeared to me demonstrated."

"All [knowledge] comes from experience, it is true, but experience is nothing if it does not form collections of similar facts. Now, to make collections is to count."

"Between the one who counts the facts, grouped according to their resemblance, in order to know what to believe regarding the value of therapeutic agents and him who does not count but always says "more or less frequent," there is the difference between truth and error, between something that is clear and truly scientific and something that is vague and without value—for what place is there in Science for that which is vague?"

"Without the aid of statistics nothing like real medicine is possible."

"My sole expectation is to lead some, who might otherwise be ignorant of them, among my brethren of the present day, to study works which I esteem as among the most valuable certainly, if not the most valuable, which any age has furnished us in regard to medicine. ...these principles may be added to, they may be enlarged, limited and modified, and yet the system may be maintained; and it will still derive its support from the first labors devoted to its erection as much as from the last."

"He studies nature with a full faith in the uniformity of her laws, and in the certainty that truth may be ascertained by diligent labor. It is truth only he loves; not anxious to build up a system, nor pretending to explain every thing, he says to his pupils, such and such have been my observations; you can observe as well as I, if you will study the art of observation, and if you will come to it with an honest mind, and be faithful in noting all which you discover, and not merely the things which are interesting at the moment, or those which support a favorite dogma; I state to you the laws of nature as they appear to me; if true, your observations will confirm them; if not true, they will refute them; I shall be content if only the truth be ascertained."

"[John P.] Bull... wrote his history of the clinical trial in 1951. He argued that the conduct of "clinical trials" can be traced to the ancient Egyptians. ...Highlighting historic events—such as Avicenna's rules for testing drugs, Francis Bacon's suggestion of a committee of physicians to judge therapeutic efficacy, James Lind's comparative trial of scurvy "cures", and P.C.A. Louis's application of his numerical method in the clinic—Bull presents a linear account of the development of the clinical trial. The implication... is that, cumulatively, these historic experiments made the clinical trial progressively more scientific."

"P. Ch. A. Louis, physician of the Hospital de la Pitié, is a man, whose labors and whose writings must become more and more known for ages. I should deem it service enough to my brethren in this country, if I could induce them, one and all, to read and study the works of this great pathologist. M. Louis is the founder of the numerical system, as it has been denominated, in respect to the science of medicine. ...M. Louis has not brought forward a new system of medicine; he has only proposed and pursued a new method in prosecuting the study of medicine. This is nothing else than the method of induction, the method of Bacon, so much vaunted and yet so little regarded. ...To estimate the value of his observations, it is necessary to understand the plan, on which he collected them. First, then, he ascertained when the patient under his examination began to be diseased. Not satisfied with vague answers, he went back to the period, when the patient enjoyed his usual health; and he also endeavored to learn whether that usual health had been firm, or in any respect infirm. He noted also the age, occupation, residence, and manner of living of the patient; likewise any accidents which had occurred, and which might have influenced the disease then affecting him. He ascertained also, as much as possible, the diseases which had occurred in the family of his patient. Secondly, he inquired into the present disease, ascertaining not only what symptoms had marked its commencement, but those which had been subsequently developed and the order of their occurrence; and recording those, which might not seem to be connected with the principal disease, as well as those which were so connected; also, measuring the degree or violence of each symptom, with as much accuracy as the case would admit. Thirdly, he noted the actual phenomena present at his examination, depending for this not only on the statement of the patient, but on his own senses, his eyes, his ears and his hands. Under this and the preceding head he was not satisfied with noting the functions, in which the patient complained of disorder, but examined carefully as to all the functions, recording their state as being healthy or otherwise, and even noticing the absence of symptoms, which might bear on the diagnosis. Thus all secondary diseases, and those, which accidentally co-existed with the principal malady, were brought under his view. Fourthly, he continued to watch his patient from day to day, carefully recording all the changes, which occurred in him till his restoration to health, or his decease. Fifthly, in the fatal cases he exercised the same scrupulous care in examining the dead, as he had in regard to the living subject. Prepared by a minute acquaintance with anatomy, and familiar with the changes wrought by disease, he looked not only at the parts where the principal disorder was manifested, but at all the organs. His notes did not state opinions, but facts. He recorded in regard to each part, which was not quite healthy in its appearance, the changes in color, consistence, firmness, thickness, &c.; not contenting himself with saying that a part was inflamed, or was cancerous, or with the use of any general, but indefinite terms."

"By the middle of the 1830s the numerical method, which Louis enshrined as the doctrinal heart of his new Société médicale d'observation, had become probably the most fiercely contested proposition in all of French medicine."

"Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis should be honored as a primary author of the "numerical method." By "numerical method" he meant that the stages of disease and therapeutic outcomes should be expressed in terms of numbers and not merely as a set of verbal descriptions. ...This method seems so sensible that it is difficult to see why it was resisted by the medical establishment."

"The objection made to the numerical method, to wit, the difficulty or impossibility of forming classes of similar facts, is alike applicable to all the methods that might be substituted; that it is impossible to appreciate each case with mathematical exactness, and it is precisely on this account that enumeration becomes necessary; by so doing, the errors, (which are inevitable,) being the same in two groups of patients subjected to different treatment, mutually compensate each other, and they may be disregarded without sensibly affecting the exactness of the results."

"In any epidemic... let us suppose five hundred of the sick, taken indiscriminately, to be subjected to one kind of treatment, and five hundred others, taken in the same manner, to be treated in a different mode; if the mortality is greater among the first, than among the second, must we not conclude that the treatment was less appropriate, or less efficacious in the first class, than in the second ? It is unavoidable; for among so large a collection, similarities of condition will necessarily be met with, and all things being equal, except the treatment, the conclusion will be rigorous."

"You have a grim taste in miracles, my friend."

"No field of knowledge is so transparently simple as another’s."

"If people don’t leave a hole in your life when they are gone, Consuela, they were never in your life at all."

"This was an omen for sure, but one with no obvious meaning."

"He believed because he wanted to believe. And that, too, is madness."

"What the prisoner said made some sense. He could see how technological progress—and social change with it—was coupled with free trade and the free exchange of ideas. Yet, he wasn’t at all sure that it was necessarily a good thing. There was a lot to be said for stability and continuity."

"But scouts, he told himself firmly, must observe what is, not what they wish to see."

"Cigars were for talk; pipes for reflection."

"The stories I have to tell are not for the ears of youngsters. What were the stories, really? A crowd of men charged from the trench. Later, some of them came back. What more was there to say? Once, a long time ago, war had been glamorous, with pageantry and uniforms to shame a peacock. Now it was only necessary, and the uniforms were the color of mud."

"Brilliance cannot improvise on faulty data."

"Sometimes the obvious is only wishful thinking."

"“You split hairs.” “Better to split hairs than the heads beneath them.”"

"“Men afraid may see demons in the familiar, and direct their fear of the insensible to a fear of the sensible.” “Thought-lacking!” “So it is; but it is what folk do.”"

"She said nothing, but said it loudly."

"“I know my equations are true,” she mused aloud. “I need to know if they are fact.”"

"He could not live again in Paris. It had seemed better then only because he had been younger, and had not yet known contentment."

"“Had you learned to flatter the Kaiser, you would need not live in the back woods.” “Had you learned to live in the back woods, you would need not flatter the Kaiser.”"

"One does not debate nature; one experiences nature."

"There seemed no face within the cowl, only a black emptiness, and the notion sprang irresistibly to Dietrich’s mind that this was Death, now these dozen years overdue, treading a weary mountain trail in search of him. Then a flash of white showed within the shadow and Dietrich realized that it was only the angle of the sun that had made that hood seem so empty."

"He read the document a second time, but the words had not changed."

"Much as I would tend my manor in peace, peace needs the consent of all, while one alone may raise a war. I swore an oath to protect the defenseless and punish peace-breakers, and that includes peace-breaking Herrenfolk. Your priests say to forgive your enemy, and that is well, or revenge follows revenge until eternity. But between a man who will stop at nothing and one who will hesitate at anything, the advantage is generally to the former. The pagans had right, too. It is a false peace to be overforgiving. Your enemy may read forbearance as weakness and so be drawn to strike."

"He dyed his hair with great art, maintaining enough gray to suggest wisdom, but not so much as to suggest age."