Lambert Adolphe Quetelet | Biography

Lambert Adolphe Quetelet was born in 1796 in Ghent, Belgium. He was the son of a municipal officer who had once left Ghent to become a secretary to a Scottish nobleman. At an early age Quetelet showed a great talent for mathematics. By the age of nineteen Quetelet taught mathematics at the university level and spent his free time writing poetry. Quetelet continued his education at the newly formed University of Ghent where he became the first student at the school to receive a doctor of science degree.

In 1820, as recognition for his academic excellence, Quetelet was elected to membership in the Academie Royale desScience et belles lettres de Bruxelles. Due in part tolack of interest this Belgian Academy had fallen on hard times. Quetelet is credited with revitatizing the Academy through his eager involvement. For a short period he served as director and later secretary of the Academy.

After Quetelet received his doctorate, his interests expanded to encompass physics and meteorology, but what he is most noted for his work in statistical studies. Quetelet was the founder of a new type of statistics governed by a scientific method using a foundation of "social physics." This social physics later cameto be known as sociology.

Through his statistical studies, Quetelet created something he referred to as moral statistics, a method of investigation with a mathematical basis in the theory of probabilities. In otherwords, Quetelet's theory was based on the proposition that the moral nature of a man could be determined by a statistical study of his actions. Quetelet began his research by the physical study of the "average man." He laboriously recorded population statistics surrounding the birth, height, physical proportions of men at various ages, and the death of viewed as the average man. He then used these physical proportions to study the connection between body size and crime. This analysis led to the measuring of accused criminals as a way to identify their guilt or innocence. These studies were predecessors to later racist physical anthropological work that claimed to prove a link between skull size and the intellect of various races.

Quetelet also studied mental and moral traits in order to discover an individual's propensity to crime. He conducted studies where he recorded specific crimes and the ages of the persons committing the crimes. The total number of each criminal act was then divided by the number occurring in a particular age group. Quetelet's results showed the probability of committing certain crimes at particular ages. He called this the "penchantau crime" or propensity to crime. In his largest study on crime, Quetelet chronicled the influence of education, climate, sex, and age on a person's propensity to commit criminal acts. Quetelet's theories left little to free will but rather placed great importance on an individual's social environment. Quetelet's writings included work on population, moral statistics, physical anthropology, and social systems. He died in 1874.