Quetelet and the emergence of the behavioral sciences
Journal: SpringerPlus
Year: 2015

Adolphe Quetelet was one of the most prominent figures of the second half of the nineteenth century, yet in present-day histories of several social sciences the impact of his ideas is widely ignored. The first part consists of a sketch of his life and work. Astronomer and statistician, he sought to apply the mathematical tools of astronomy to create was has been called a 'mathematics of society'. In particular he demonstrated regularities in the incidence of various social phenomena, notably cri