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Stephen Stigler, the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor of Statistics, is the author of a new book, The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom, published in March by the Harvard University Press.
Photo by Robert Kozloff
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In The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom, published in March by the Harvard University Press, Stephen Stigler identifies seven fundamental principles of statistics, a largely interdisciplinary field.
Stigler, the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor of Statistics, explained that statistics is not a field that feeds on itself. Rather, statistics addresses quantitative questions in a variety of fields, such as philosophy, literature, medicine, physics, economics, and sociology. In his book, Stigler aims to differentiate statistics from mathematics and computer science as a data science, and point out what makes statistics unique.
“The pillars are the support, not the substance, of statistics,” said Stigler. “This book is a taxonomy of the intellectual terrain of statistics.”
While writing The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom, Stigler embraced the challenge of trying to communicate to a broad audience and make clear concepts that took 100 years to develop.
