Faculty Publications

John Graunt, John Arbuthnott, And The Human Sex Ratio

Document Type

Article

Keywords

History of Statistics, Sex ratio

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Human Biology

Volume

73

Issue

4

First Page

605

Last Page

610

Abstract

John Graunt was the first person to compile data that showed an excess of male births over female births. He also noticed spatial and temporal variation in the sex ratio, but the variation in his data is not significant. John Arbuthnott was the first person to demonstrate that the excess of male births is statistically significant. He erroneously concluded that there is less variation in the sex ratio than would occur by chance, and asserted without a basis that the sex ratio would be uniform over all time and space.

Department

Department of Mathematics

Original Publication Date

1-1-2001

DOI of published version

10.1353/hub.2001.0048

Link to Full Text

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