文件名称：应用多元统计
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更新时间：2021-07-23 05:01:44
多元统计分析
All sciences of observation follow the same course. One begins by observing a phenomenon, then studies all associated circumstances, and finally, if the results of observation can be expressed numerically [Quetelet's italics], estimates the inten- sity of the causes that have concurred in its formation. This course has been followed in studying purely material phenom- ena in physics and astronomYi it will likely also be the course followed in the study of phenomena dealing with moral behav- ior and the intelligence of man. Statistics begins with the gath- ering of numbersj these numbers, collected on a large scale with care and prudence, have revealed interesting facts and have led to the conjecture of laws ruling the moral and intellectual world, much like those that govern the material world. It is the whole of these laws that appears to me to constitute social physics, a science which, while still in its infancy, becomes in- contestably more important each day and will eventually rank among those sciences most beneficial to man. (Quetelet, 1837) The investigation of causal relations between economic phe- nomena presents many problems of peculiar difficulty, and of- fers many opportunities for fallacious conclusions. Since the statistician can seldom or never make experiments for himself, he has to accept the data of daily experience, and discuss as best he can the relations of a whole group of changesj he can- not, like the physicist, narrow down the issue to the effect of one variation at a time. The problems of statistics are in this sense far more complex than the problems of physics. (Yule, 1897) Some people hate the very name of statistics, but I find them full of beauty and interest. Whenever they are not bru- talized, but delicately handled by the higher methods, and are warily interpreted, their power of dealing with complicated phenomena is extraordinary. They are the only tools by which ~ opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of diffi- culties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of man. (Galton, 1908)