Literary notes about statistician (AI summary)
The term “statistician” is deployed in literature with a range of connotations that reflect both its technical rigor and its sometimes detached, even mysterious, character. For instance, E. M. Forster pairs the statistician with the poet as the one capable of tackling the unthinkable, suggesting a tension between analytical precision and creative exploration ([1]). In science fiction and social commentary, however, the statistician becomes a dynamic figure—buzzing with authority in Kornbluth’s depiction ([2]) and serving as a crucial guide in narrative settings ([3]). In legal and crime-related texts, the role is more ambivalent; Hans Gross’s work implies that pure data often falls short of revealing deeper truths ([4]). Early sociological writings by Burgess and Park underscore the statistician’s evolving notion of progress ([5], [6]), while Du Bois portrays the figure as a meticulous recorder of human progress and misfortune ([7]). Even in classic mystery, as in Doyle’s narrative, the statistician offers a brief but impactful voice of empirical assertion ([8]).
- They are unthinkable and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet.
— from Howards End by E. M. Forster - He buzzed for Rogge-Smith, his statistician.
— from The Marching Morons by C. M. Kornbluth - Mollified, Barlow followed his statistician down the corridor.
— from The Marching Morons by C. M. Kornbluth - The criminalist gives the statistician the figures but the latter can derive no significant principles from them.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross - (19) Willcox, Walter F. "A Statistician's Idea of Progress," International Journal of Ethics , XXIII (1913), 275-98.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - [348] "A Statistician's Idea of Progress," International Journal of Ethics , XVIII (1913), 296.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - The cold statistician wrote down the inches of progress here and there, noted also where here and there a foot had slipped or some one had fallen.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois - So says the statistician.
— from The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle