Seventeenth-century statistical enthusiasm was religious euphoria like today’s Big Data fever

Evidence

When the statistical method was discovered in the seventeenth century, it captivated scientists, gamblers, poets and philosophers alike. Enthusiastically, they embraced statistical probability and regularity. There can be no doubt that such euphoria admits comparison with the fortunes of Big Data today. Then, statistics inspired renewed trust in a higher power for people as they confronted the contingencies of the world. For instance, an eighteenth-century treatise by John Arbuthnot was called An Argument for Divine Providence, taken from the Regularity observ’d in the British Births of both Sexes. On the basis of the statistically determined predominance of male infants relative to female ones, philosophers saw the hand of God at work – and found further reason to justify war. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 166

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The Arbuthnot example - male-to-female birth ratios read as divine providence justifying war - is a nice counter to my sacrifice article’s means of stabilizing society; also could enrich the immodesty article as an instance of numeric pseudo-order.
• CANDY: Arbuthnot’s use of birth-sex statistics as proof of divine providence (and grounds for war) is a great dinner-party anecdote.