THE STATISTICAL TURN IN AMERICAN SOCIAL-SCIENCE - COLUMBIA-UNIVERSITY, 1890 TO 1915

Drawing on recent work in the sociology of science, we propose a socio logical approach for understanding the process by which statistical me thods were originally incorporated into the social sciences in America . In a departure from past accounts, which have viewed early statistic al developments in the United Stares as part of the history of separat e academic disciplines, we analyze interdisciplinary relations and loc al institutional conditions in turn-of-the-century America to elucidat e the adoption and use of statistical methods by James McKeen Cattell in psychology, Franz Boas in anthropology, Franklin H. Giddings in soc iology, and Henry L. Moore in economics. We argue that these four thin kers were doing boundary work to legitimize their disciplines in a com petitive interdisciplinary field, where they confronted the ''newcomer 's dilemma'' of conformity versus differentiation in relation to other discilplines. All four innovators turned to statistical methods to de monstrate compliance with acceptable scientific models and at the same time carve out a distinctive mode of statistical analysis to differen tiate their own discipline from the others. Our analysis also shows th at these developments occurred only under certain local institutional conditions. Cattell, Boas, Giddings, and Moore were faculty members at Columbia University at a time when the University had gained a compet itive lead in the area of statistics over rival universities. Determin ed to preserve this institutional advantage, Columbia provided a condu cive setting for the interdisciplinary process of the incorporation of statistical methods into the social sciences.