Research On Graunt’s Statistical Thought

The seventeenth century was a period of great intellectual activity and the rapid development of many ideas in modern science.In every field,people’s way of seeking knowledge is turning to exploration and experimental practice,and the English statistician John Graunt(April 24,1620-March 18,1674)is a typical representative of the spirit of The Times.John Graunt is one of the most important figures in the history of western statistics.His book " Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality " published in 1662 was the first work in the field of statistics and the starting point of statistics as a knowledge.Graunt’s work had a great influence on the development of statistics as well as many fields such as politics and economics.Because of the importance of grunt and his works in the history of statistics,the study of his statistical thoughts has attracted more and more attention abroad,but there is hardly any special research on it in China.Based on this understanding,this paper will make a comprehensive study of Graunt’s statistical thought and its historical significance by interpreting Graunt’s works.Introduction part: mainly introduces the purpose and significance of this topic,and analyzes the research status at China and abroad.Chapter One: Graunt’s life is introduced in detail,including his family background,family situation and work experience.Through the investigation of Graunt’s life,his enthusiasm for statistical work and the origin of his statistical thought formation can be revealed to a certain extent.It also introduces the main contents of observation,the arguments about the author of observation and the scientific method in the book.Chapter Two: Chapter two is the focus of this paper.This part mainly studies grunt’s statistical thought through his works,including(1)Graunt calculated the total population of London through data,and verified it with two different methods;(2)put forward the concept of data reduction,and sorted the chaotic data into several clear tables.Graunt first proposed the concept of life table to understand the age structure of stable population.(3)raise the question of data credibility,verify the years with the highest mortality rate of black death in London,and verify that rickets is a new disease through the data.(4)germination of the Law of large Numbers.Chapter three: mainly introduces the thought of Political Arithmetic which is closely related to Graunt’s thought.The school was founded under the leadership of Graunt and Petty,explore whether the author of ‘Observation’ is Petty or Graunt,and the background of the main political arithmetic and the main school of thought.Introduces the influence of Graunt’s statistical thought on both Political Arithmetic and other scholars.Conclusion: To make an objective evaluation of Graunt’s statistical thought,and objectively views the progress and limitations of Graunt’s statistical history by quoting other people’s statistical evaluation of Graunt.