LAPLACIAN DETERMINISM


1776 Pierre Simon de Laplace

"An intelligence which at a given instant comprehends all the relations of the entities of the universe could state their positions, motions, and general affects at any time in the past or future.

So it is that we owe to the weakness of the human mind the science of chance
and probability."

Consistent with the spirit of Laplacian determinism, he developed probability as a means of repairing the defects in knowledge.

However, there are tantalizing passages scattered throughout his writings that suggest that Laplace may have had an inkling (or perhaps a repressed belief) that there are inherently random processes in nature that are not merely the result of our ignorance.

In the early 1800's the Belgian scientist was sent to Paris to study under Laplace."

Laplace's application of probability to demography and actuarial determination inspired Adolphe Quetelet to apply probability to Staatswissenschaft.

He dubbed this "Statistics"(measuring the social properties of the state) and thus founded the "Social Physics" and thereby to founded the statistical Social Sciences.

The moral aspects of this were championed by the social reformer Florence Nightingale, who made Quetelet her hero.

In 1830 John Herschel wrote an Essay on Quetelet.

This Essay was read by James Clerk Maxwell, and motivated him to apply the Social Sciences to societies of atoms, formulated the kinetic theory of gases.