ABSTRACT
In the western world, statistics started in the seventeenth century a little over 300 years ago attributed by many to John Graunt who attempted to relate data of mortality to public health by constructing life tables (Glass, 1964). Thus, the birth of statistics relates to solving problems in demography and epidemiology, subjects very much at the heart of geographical science and ecology. It is interesting to note that Graunt’s 1662 book Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality took an interdisciplinary approach linking counts of human mortality at various ages to public health. In addition, the word “observations” in the title of his book illustrates statistics’ empirical heritage, i.e., collecting and organizing data and performing analysis driven by these data.
