Karl Pearson's Biometric Laboratory and the Spread of Statistical Methods in Science

卡尔·皮尔逊在很多方面都是现代统计学的创始人，作为一套适用于几乎任何科学的定量数据的方法。虽然关于皮尔逊作为统计学家的发展以及他的工作与他的优生学承诺的关系有很好的历史文献，但关于皮尔逊统计方法在采用这些方法的科学中的传播却很少。波特博士通过研究皮尔逊的私人接触和通信强调统计学的扩展。皮尔逊的生物识别实验室开始招收研究生和其他访客。几个学科中一些最重要的统计学家长期与他直接合作。为了了解这个网络是如何从皮尔逊的实验室扩展到各个科学学科的，波特博士正在研究皮尔逊的档案和那些将现代统计方法引入各自学科的人发表的记录。波特博士敏锐地注意到这些人工作的科学和制度背景。这项研究不仅有助于统计的历史，而且有助于我们对期望、标准和价值观的理解，这些期望、标准和价值观使统计推理规则在现代社会和自然科学的客观性驱动中如此重要。

Karl Pearson was in many ways the founder of modern statistics as a set of methods applicable to quantitative data from almost any science. While there is good historical literature about Pearson's own development as a statistician and the relation of his work to his eugenic commitments, there is remarkably little about the spread of Pearsonian statistical methods to the sciences that adopted them. Dr. Porter is emphasizing the expansion of statistics through a study of Pearson personal contacts and correspondence. Pearson's biometric laboratory began taking in postgraduate students and other visitors. Some of the most important statisticians in several disciplines worked with him directly for extended periods. To see how this network spread from Pearson's lab to the various scientific disciplines, Dr. Porter is examining both the Pearson archive and the published record of those who introduced modern statistical methods to their disciplines. Dr. Porter is keenly alert to the scientific and institutional contexts within which such people worked. This study contributes not only to the history of statistics as such, but also to our understanding of the expectations, standards, and values that have made statistical rules of inference so central to the drive for objectivity in the modern social and natural sciences.