| Time | Contributor | Contribution |
| Ancient Greece | Philosophers | Ideas - no quantitative analyses |
| 17th Century | Graunt, Petty Pascal, Bernoulli |
studied affairs of state, vital statistics of
populations studied probability through games of chance, gambling |
| 18th Century | Laplace, Gauss | normal curve, regression through study of astronomy |
| 19th Century | Quetelet Galton |
astronomer who first applied statistical analyses to
human biology studied genetic variation in humans(used regression and correlation) |
| 20th Century (early) | Pearson Gossett (Student) Fisher |
studied natural selection using correlation, formed
first academic department of statistics, Biometrika
journal, helped develop the Chi Square analysis studied process of brewing, alerted the statistics community about problems with small sample sizes, developed Student's test evolutionary biologists - developed ANOVA, stressed the importance of experimental design |
| 20th Century (later) | Wilcoxon Kruskal, Wallis Spearman Kendall Tukey Dunnett Keuls Computer Technology |
biochemist studied pesticides, non-parametric
equivalent of two-samples test economists who developed the non-parametric equivalent of the ANOVA psychologist who developed a non-parametric equivalent of the correlation coefficient statistician who developed another non-parametric equivalent the correlation coefficient statistician who developed multiple comparisons procedure biochemist who studied pesticides, developed multiple comparisons procedure for control groups agronomist who developed multiple comparisons procedure provided many advantages over calculations by hand or by calculator, stimulated the growth of investigation into new techniques |