社会统计学可以有两种不同意义的用法。它可以指将统计方法应用于社会问题,或者可以指用它来收集与社会问题有关的实际数据。统计学一词的历史可以简略追溯到于尔(G.U.Yule)和肯德尔(M.G.Kendall)的论文《统计学理论导言》。论文中认为“‘统计学家’、‘统计学’、‘统计学的’等词显然都是来源于拉丁词 Social statistics can have two different meanings. It can refer to the application of statistical methods to social issues or to the collection of actual data on social issues. The history of statistics can be traced back to G.U.Yule and M.G.Kendall’s Introduction to Statistical Theory. In the dissertation, it is clear that the words “statisticians”, “statistics” and “statistics” all apparently come from the Latin words