A historical Pachinko machine, a relative of Francis Galton's
Quincunx and the AAKKOZZLL, and the predecessor of the widely popular amusement
in today's Japan. Click here for more info – photo
by Gnsin.
There has been a feeling that perhaps something analogous to the laws of physical sciences might be found to operate in the behaviourial sciences. The feeling grew stronger as it was realized that some physical laws were only manifestations of a statistical average, and as laws in the classical sense were brought to light in the biological sciences, which, in effect, occupy an intermediate position between the biological science on inert matter and the sciences of the social organism. It is a feeling which is deeply rooted in man’s desire to perceive uniformity in his universe. On the other hand, it comes into sharp conflict with his vanity, which will not lightly surrender individual free will to an overriding law of behaviour, and his religion, which is reluctant to see the burden of personal guilt removed from his shoulders by a distribution function. It seemed to me that the time was ripe for a general airing of this subject. I propose, then, to discuss the extent to which we observe laws of behaviour in social phenomena, the nature of those laws and how we can make use of them. The time is not inappropriate, perhaps, for such a review. With the growing integration of human activities, problems of social organization and administration have become so complex that any systematic regularities which we can detect in the social sphere have an immediate application as instruments of government even if we do not fully understand the reason for their existence.
Kendall, Maurice G. “Natural Law in the Social Sciences”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, Vol. Part 1, 1961, pp. 1-19, (The Inaugural Address of the President, Professor M.G. Kendall, delivered to the Royal Statistical Society of Wednesday, November 16th, 1960).
