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While the early history of the discipline, with the works of key figures, such as Karl Pearson, Francis Galton, or Ronald Fisher, is relatively well known, the later (and longer) episodes of its intellectual development remain understudied. By applying digital tools to the full-text corpus of the journal articles (N\u2009=\u20095,596), the objective of this study is to provide a novel quantitative exploration of the history of the statistical sciences via an all-encompassing view of 120 years of Biometrika. To this aim, topic-modelling analyses are used and provide insights into the epistemic content of the journal and its evolution. Striking changes in the thematic content of the journal are documented and quantified for the first time, from the decline of Pearsonian and Weldonian biometrical research and the journal\u2019s tight connection to biology in the 1930s to the rise of modern statistical methods beginning in the 1960s and 1970s. Newly developed approaches are used to infer author networks from publication topics. The resulting network of authors shows the existence of several communities, well-aligned with topic clusters and their evolution through time. It also highlights the role of specific figures over more than a century of publishing history and provides a first window onto the foundation, development, and diverse applications of the statistical sciences.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/llc\/fqad072","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,14]],"date-time":"2023-10-14T05:36:20Z","timestamp":1697261780000},"page":"13-29","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["A quantitative window on the history of statistics: topic-modelling 120 years of<i>Biometrika<\/i>"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"39","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4330-5077","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nicola","family":"Bertoldi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Philosophy Department & Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur la Science et la Technologie, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al (UQAM) , Montr\u00e9al, QC H3C 3P8, Canada"}]},{"given":"Francis","family":"Lareau","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Department, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al (UQAM) , Montr\u00e9al, QC H2X 3Y7, Canada"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6836-6047","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Charles H","family":"Pence","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institut Sup\u00e9rieur de Philosophie, Universit\u00e9 Catholique de Louvain , Louvain-la-Neuve B-1348, Belgium"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1413-6710","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Christophe","family":"Malaterre","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Philosophy Department & Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur la Science et la Technologie, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al (UQAM) , Montr\u00e9al, QC H3C 3P8, Canada"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"2024040210381175900_fqad072-B1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-14142-8","volume-title":"Data Mining","author":"Aggarwal","year":"2015"},{"key":"2024040210381175900_fqad072-B2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1093\/biomet\/ass077","article-title":"Karl Pearson\u2019s Biometrika: 1901-36\u2019,","volume":"100","author":"Aldrich","year":"2013","journal-title":"Biometrika"},{"key":"2024040210381175900_fqad072-B3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"53","DOI":"10.1093\/biomet\/88.1.53","article-title":"One Hundred Years of the Design of Experiments On and Off the Pages of Biometrika\u2019,","volume":"88","author":"Atkinson","year":"2001","journal-title":"Biometrika"},{"key":"2024040210381175900_fqad072-B4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1609\/icwsm.v3i1.13937","article-title":"Gephi: an open source software for exploring and manipulating networks\u2019, in","author":"Bastian","year":"2009","journal-title":"International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media"},{"key":"2024040210381175900_fqad072-B5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"77","DOI":"10.1145\/2133806.2133826","article-title":"Probabilistic Topic Models\u2019,","volume":"55","author":"Blei","year":"2012","journal-title":"Communications of the ACM"},{"key":"2024040210381175900_fqad072-B6","author":"Blei","year":"2006"},{"key":"2024040210381175900_fqad072-B7","first-page":"17","article-title":"A Correlated Topic Model of Science\u2019,","volume":"1","author":"Blei","year":"2007","journal-title":"Annals of Applied Statistics"},{"key":"2024040210381175900_fqad072-B8","first-page":"71","volume-title":"Text Mining: Classification, Clustering, and Applications","author":"Blei","year":"2009"},{"key":"2024040210381175900_fqad072-B9","first-page":"993","article-title":"Latent Dirichlet 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