Stephen M. Stigler is interested in the history of statistics and probability, from the appearance of early concepts in gambling, astronomy, and geodesy, to the development of statistical methods in social science and biology, including the ways those methods have helped to shape core ideas in these sciences. Some individual scientists who have been particularly influential in this history are Laplace, Gauss, Quetelet, Galton, Edgeworth, Karl and Egon Pearson, Ronald Fisher, Neyman, and Wald. Two focuses of current research are 20th century mathematical statistics and the history of lotteries.

CV and Publications

Publications include:

The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900. The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1986.

Statistics on the Table: The History of Statistical Concepts and Methods. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999.

The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2016.