History of Statistics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

History of Statistics - Essay Example He further elaborated that statistics can be applied to numeric, alphabetical, and even symbolic data. Statistics has been traditionally regarded as the "science of the state" because its original designation and application is in the analysis of the data about the state. Statistics is primarily used to refer to the collection and classification of data for governmental and administrative bodies in the early 19th century. The 20th century saw a substantial advancement in statistics as this science is not only employed to gather demographic data but has also become an instrumental tool in the analysis of public health concerns, economic, and social matters (Statistics 3-5). With these developments, the task of statistician has branched out from the collection and analysis of the governmental data to encompass other sectors like business and industry, health and medicine, learning, research, social scientists and natural resources (Careers in Statistics 1-20). Statistics is important to all these fields as the often predict and test the validity of various hypothesis. The main task of the statistician in these diverse fields is to carry out the statistical processes-data collection, analysis, presentation, interpretation of results and elaboration of methods. Statisticians must also determine the validity of the data they gather.