Introduction. Quetelet and Sociology

Introduces an essay by Adolphe Quetelet, "Fisica social o ensayo sobre el hombre y el desarrollo de sus facultades" ([The Social Physique or an Essay on the Development of Human Faculties] 1869). This work describes the historical characteristics of social knowledge & the discipline of statistics. Quetelet was a pioneer in statistics, but not generally referred to as a sociologist. However, he made three major contributions to sociology: he played a decisive role in implementing periodic & standardized censuses. He introduced the idea that society is a product of divine design & human behavior. He developed a quantitative model (a normal distribution) to describe social behavior. A brief biography of Quetelet is also presented. 27 References. M. Pflum