History
How counting people, measuring variation, and governing by numbers changed what societies could see.
STA 119FS Duke Department of Statistical Science
Statistics as a
Way of Thinking
History, Ideas, and Evidence
A seminar about how statistical ideas reshaped reasoning about uncertainty—and how quantitative evidence came to influence science and public life.
Instructor
Alexander Volfovsky
Co-instructor
Kat Husar
Required reading Stephen M. Stigler’s The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900.
01 / The course
Statistics is more than a toolbox.
Its history is a history of reasoning with imperfect information.
The seminar approaches statistics as an intellectual history and a living practice: a collection of ideas that reshaped how people describe uncertainty, make comparisons, and argue from evidence.
Ideas
How probability, models, uncertainty, and causation gave evidence a formal language.
Evidence
How statistical arguments gain authority—and where their assumptions, omissions, and values enter.
02 / Guiding questions
The questions behind the calculations.
The seminar asks how technical ideas connect to the human problems that give them meaning.
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What becomes visible when the world is translated into numbers?
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What makes one piece of evidence more persuasive than another?
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How should we judge a statistical claim—and what might it leave out?
03 / Course materials
A home for the seminar.
The syllabus, live calendar, and assignments are collected here. Readings and additional materials will appear as the course takes shape.
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View
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Seminar calendar
Meetings, topics, and due dates
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Planned
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Reading shelf
Primary texts, essays, and context
Assignments
Prompts and activities