Stillbirth of a Canadian Statistical Society in 19th Century Canada
ABSTRACT:
In the 1850s and 60s there were some moves in Canada to form a
statistical society along the lines of the Statistical Society of London
(now the Royal Statistical Society) or other similar statistical
societies in operation at the time. Some success was achieved by Philip
Pearsall Carpenter who was responsible for the formation of the Montreal
Sanitary Association in 1867. The Association was initiated through
Carpenter's collection and comparison of mortality data that showed
Montreal as having a very high mortality rate when compared to other
parts of Canada, the U.S. and Britain. Carpenter blamed the high death
rate on poor sanitation in Montreal. The purpose of the Association was
to collect statistics related to the sanitation of Montreal and to press
for sanitary reform in that city. A clerk in a Montreal insurance
company, Andrew Watt argued vehemently that Carpenter's data and
conclusions were highly suspect. A war of words ensued in the press and
eventually many came to accept Watt's position. The Montreal Sanitary
Association fell apart as a statistical society but was reconstituted as
a group whose sole purpose was to press politically for sanitary reform
in Montreal. The talk will illustrate some of the relationships between
statistics and the press and between statistics and politics, as well as
the public's general understanding of statistical arguments.
This work
has been done jointly with Christian Genest of Université Laval.
