Demography in the Context of Population Sciences: A Historical Reflection

Abstract

Demography as a science about populations has developed in a close relationship with other natural and social sciences. The tight relationship of demography to social sciences and statistics is now taken for granted, while the relationship to natural sciences remains underappreciated. This paper aims to search for interdisciplinary connections of demography to natural sciences focused on populations. It starts with an excursion to history and contemplates on the motivation for the historical development of demography in a broader scientific and historical context. Individual topics discusses here include the origins of probabilistic mortality tables and historical personalities of Adolphe Quetelet, Leonard Darwin, and Ronald A. Fisher, where an original application of Fisher factorial test is presented. The connection between the history of demography and eugenics in the first half of the 20th century is also recalled. Finally, the paper continues with a discussion of current relationships of demography with (modern) eugenics or population genetics.