Table Of ContentA Celebration of Statistics
The lSI Centenary Volume
International
Statistical
Institute
~
Editorial Advisory Panel
B. A. Bailar, Bureau of the Census, Suitland, MD, U.S.A.
J. M. Chambers, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, U.S.A.
A. P. Dawid, University College, London, England
I. Guttman, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
R. A. Horvath, Central Statistical Office, Budapest, Hungary
D. Vere Jones, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
A Celebration
of Statistics
The lSI Centenary Volume
A Volume to Celebrate the Founding
of the International Statistical Institute in 1885
Edited by
Anthony C. Atkinson and Stephen E. Fienberg
Springer-Verlag New York Berlin Heidelberg Tokyo
ANTHONY C. ATKINSON
Imperial College of Science and Technology
London SW7 2BZ, England
STEPHEN E. FIENBERG
Carnegie-Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
U.S.A.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
A Celebration of statistics.
Includes index.
I. Mathematical statistics-Addresses, essays, lectures.
2. Statistics-Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Atkinson,
A. C. (Anthony Curtis) II. Fienberg, Stephen E.
Ill. International Statistical Institute.
QA276.16.C451985 519.5 84-26825
© 1985 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1985
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form
without written permission from Springer-Verlag, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New
York 10010, U.S.A.
The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication,
even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such
names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly
be used freely by anyone.
Typeset by Aseo Trade Typesetting Ltd., Hong Kong.
987654321
ISBN -13: 978-1-4613-8562-2 e-ISBN-13:978-1-4613-8560-8
DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4613-8560-8
Foreword
The International Statistical Institute was founded in 1885 and is therefore one
of the world's oldest international scientific societies. The field of statistics is
still expanding rapidly and possesses a rich variety of applications in many areas
of human activity such as science, government, business, industry, and everyday
affairs. In consequence, the celebration of the Institute's centenary in 1985 is
of considerable interest not only to statisticians but also more widely to the
international scientific community. As part of its centennial celebration planning
the Institute decided to publish a volume of papers representing the immensely
wide range of interests encompassed by statistics in its international context,
viewed both from a historical and from a contemporary standpoint. We were
fortunate in securing the services of Anthony Atkinson and Stephen Fienberg as
Editors of this volume: they have worked hard over a period of several years to
put together a most fascinating collection of papers. On behalf of the Institute
it is my pleasant duty to thank them and the authors for their contributions.
J. DURBIN, President
International Statistical Institute
Preface
The papers in this volume were prepared to help celebrate the centenary of the
International Statistical Institute. During the lSI's first 100 years statistics has
matured, both as a scientific discipline and as a profession, in ways that the lSI's
founders could not possibly have imagined. With this maturation, not only has
statistics become the language of science, but statistical terms and concepts have
also permeated all aspects of modern society, from the workplace, to our news
papers, and even to the courtroom. Being able to see statistics in action all around
us is a source of constant stimulation to us as individual statisticians, and thus
to our field. We hope that the papers in this volume reflect the variety, excitement,
importance, and international range of our subject.
There should be something here for everyone. When we wrote to prospective
authors inviting papers we stated: "The plan of the International Statistical Institute
is that the book should be truly international. We hope for a geographical spread
of authors and also for a range of subjects that will interest statisticians in all
countries, both developed and developing. We are most concerned that the papers
should be a way of strengthening communication between groups of statisticians.
In some cases an appreciable proportion of survey, exposition, and discussion
may be more appropriate than new results. We are especially interested in a
discussion of unsolved problems and of future challenges." At the back of our
minds was the additional hope that many of the papers would provide a glimpse
of what statisticians do--for laymen and for our colleagues in other professions.
A brief outline of our method of working will help explain the contents of
the volume. We received the invitation to edit the volume early in 1980. In the
process of inviting and refereeing contributions we have had the support of a
panel of advisors, listed on the first page, some of whom were chosen explicitly
as representatives of the three sections of lSI. They and other members of the
lSI were asked to suggest topics and names of authors for papers. As a result
of these suggestions we wrote, in the autumn of 1980, to an initial list of 18
authors in 12 countries. Other invitations to contribute followed as the structure
and needs of the volume emerged.
Our purpose throughout has been to display the best of statistics, while at the
same time achieving a balance across topics and across countries. We attempted
to do this while relying upon authors whom we knew could provide interesting
and even provocative papers. As the work on the volume progressed, the balance
has shifted somewhat, in part by design and in part by happenstance. Some
potential authors felt that they could not accept our invitation to contribute.
Others accepted but then found that they could not produce the papers they had
offered. In these cases, rather than lose the balance across subjects, we sometimes
viii Preface
had to turn to someone near at hand to produce a key paper. This process has
slightly distorted the national balance for which we strove, but the quality of the
papers has been our primary concern.
Looking back over five years of work we are impressed by the quality, the
quantity, and the variety of the papers which have been assembled. Some of the
most technical papers are among the most readable and some of the less technical
present us with the most fascinating challenges for the future. Nonetheless, we
are aware of some major gaps which are worth mentioning if only in the hope
that someone we did not contact will feel impelled to put pen to paper. One
such gap is the difficult subject of the abuse, or perhaps distortion, of statistics
by government and of the duties of government statisticians to their employers
and to their fellow citizens. It is stated that Mussolini made the trains run on
time. He is also said to have reduced unemployment in Italy by decreasing the
categories of those counted as unemployed. Governments of many persuasions
continue to behave in this manner, or at least occasionally attempt to do so.
Some examples from British experience are quoted by Sir Claus Moser in Section
3, "Integrity," of his presidential address to the Royal Statistical Society, pub
lished in 1980. Readers in other countries can doubtless provide their own
examples. What we sought, but failed to find, was a paper that would give
examples of this behavior in an international context. There are other ethical
issues going beyond integrity to the statistician's responsibility for the use and
interpretation of government statistics, especially those subject to serious tech
nical uncertainties associated with measurement error, in forms that the data do
not support. We had hoped to see these issues discussed as well, again from an
international perspective.
Other subjects on which we would have liked additional papers relate to
statistical activities in developing countries and the transfer of technology. Despite
our best efforts, authors from developing countries are underrepresented in this
volume. Some reasons for this may be gleaned from the paper by Pearce. We
also failed in our efforts to obtain a paper on the transfer of technology from
one developed country to another. We had in mind the Japanese effort in the
area of quality control and its transfer to the factories of older industrialized
nations.
Finally, in our initial round of invitations we attempted to secure papers that
reflected the varied areas of application of present-day statistical methodology.
As we review the list of papers actually written, we note that we have had some
success in that a large fraction do deal with applications. Yet there are missing
subject matter areas, three notable ones being: business and management, en
gineering, and environmental science. There are also methodological topics that
have not received much attention. We can only note that the absence of an
extended discussion of your favorite statistical method is unintentional.
It may seem strange that in a centenary volume there is so little explicit
mention of the history of the International Statistical Institute. One reason for
this is that the first 75 years of the Institute are chronicled by J.W. Nixon in A
History of the International Statistical Institute, 1885-1960, published for the
Preface ix
75th anniversary in 1960. But, in addition, we and our advisors decided that it
would be more appropriate, and more fun for our readers, if instead of a history
we were to produce a volume on the "stuff" of statistics, and to point to the
future of our field instead of to its past.
All of the papers in this volume have been refereed and many have been
thoroughly revised, sometimes more than once. We are grateful to the authors,
the members of our advisory panel, and the referees for all of their work and
cooperation. The result of their efforts is a much improved collection of papers.
We believe that there is something here for anyone who is interested in, or curious
about statistics. We hope that you agree, and that you take from this volume a
sense of the excitement with which we view the future of statistics.
ANTHONY C. ATKINSON
STEPHEN E. FIENBERG
Acknowledgements
We are indebted to a large number of people who assisted in the preparation of
this volume. David Cox served as liaison with the lSI, and we turned to him
for advice and assistance on numerous occasions. Our Editorial Advisory Panel
provided suggestions for authors and topics as we began to get organized, and
the members served as primary reviewers of most of the manuscripts. A.L.
Finkner gave us special assistance and suggestions in the area of sample surveys.
In addition, the following individuals served as referees of one or more papers:
R. A. Bailey, O. E. Bamdorff-Nielsen, D. J. Bartholomew, J. L. Bell, J. T.
Bonnen, C. Cress, B. S. Everitt, V. V. Fedorov, I. Ford, J. Greenhouse, A.
M. Herzberg, Wm. Kruskal, N. Laird, J. Lehoczky, R. Mead, M. M. Meyer,
H. D. Patterson, J. N. K. Rao, R. L. Smith, C. C. Spicer, J. M. Tanur, E. J.
Thompson, and F. Vogel. Finally, we would like to thank Margie Krest for
keeping track of everything as work on the volume progressed, and for her
assistance in putting the final manuscript together for the publisher.
Contents
Foreword by J. DURBIN v
Preface Vll
Acknowledgements x
1. Prediction and Entropy 1
HIROTUGU AKAIKE
2. Statistical Developments in World War II: An International
Perspective 25
STEPHEN E. FIENBERG
3. Statistics in the United Kingdom, 1939-45 31
G. A. BARNARD and R. L. PLACKETT
4. The Fascination of Sand 57
OLE E. BARNDORFF-NIELSEN, PREBEN BLlESILD,
JENS LEDET JENSEN, and MICHAEL S0RENSON
5. International Trends in Official Statistics 89
PETTER JAKOB BJERVE
6. Cohort Analysis in Epidemiology 109
N. E. BRESLOW
7. Psychiatric Statistics 145
MORRIS H. DEGROOT and JUAN E. MEZZICH
8. Mathematical Models for Infectious Disease Statistics 167
K. DIETZ and D. SCHENZLE
9. Evolutionary Origins of Statisticians and Statistics 205
J. DURBIN
10. Statistical Computing: What's Past Is Prologue 233
WILLIAM F. EDDY and JAMES E. GENTLE
11. Conditional Econometric Modeling: An Application to New
House Prices in the United Kingdom 251
NEIL R. ERICSSON and DAVID F. HENDRY
12. Large-Scale Social Experimentation in the United States 287
STEPHEN E. FIENBERG, BURTON SINGER, and
JUDITH M. T ANUR
xii Contents
13. The Development of Sample Surveys of Finite Populations 327
MORRIS H. HANSEN, TORE DALENIUS, and
BENJAMIN J. TEPPING
14. On Some New Probabilistic Developments of Significance to
Statistics: Martingales, Long Range Dependence, Fractals, and
Random Fields 355
C. C. HEYDE
15. Concepts of Robustness 369
CHRISTOPHER FIELD
16. Robust Estimators of Location and Their Second-Order
Asymptotic Relations 377
JANA JUREtKOVA
17. Mathematical Statistics in the Humanities, and Some Related
Problems in Astronomy 393
DAVID G. KENDALL
18. Reflections on the World Fertility Survey 409
MILO~ MACURA and JOHN CLELAND
19. Economic and Social Statistics for Comparative Assessments 437
E. MALINVAUD
20. An Introduction to the Optimum Design of Experiments 465
ANTHONY C. ATKINSON
21. Experimental Design in Russian Practice 475
V. V. NALIMOV, T. I. GOLIKOVA, and Yu. V. GRANOVSKY
22. Agricultural Experimentation in a Developing Country 497
S. C. PEARCE
23. On the Statistical Analysis of Floods 511
LUIS RAUL PERICCHI and IGNACIO RODlUGUEZ-ITURBE
24. Weighted Distributions Arising Out of Methods of
Ascertainment: What Population Does a Sample Represent? 543
C. RADHAKRISHNA RAo
25. Statistical Problems in Crop Forecasting 571
D. SINGH and M. P. JHA
Author Index 585
Subject Index 600
