Why distinguish between statistics and mathematical statistics? The case of Swedish academia.

A separation between the academic subjects statistics and mathematical statistics has existed in
Sweden almost as long as there have been statistics professors. The same distinction has not been
maintained in other countries. Why has it been kept for so long in Sweden, and what consequences
may it have had?
In May 2015, it was 100 years since Mathematical Statistics was formally established as an academic
discipline at a Swedish university where Statistics had existed since the turn of the century.
We give an account of the debate in Lund and elsewhere about this division during the first decades
after 1900 and present two of its leading personalities. The Lund University astronomer (and
mathematical statistician) C. V. L. Charlier was a leading proponent for a position in mathematical
statistics at the university. Charlier’s adversary in the debate was Pontus Fahlbeck, professor in
political science and statistics, who reserved the word statistics for ‘statistics as a social science’.
Charlier not only secured the first academic position in Sweden in mathematical statistics for his
former PhD student Sven Wicksell but also demonstrated that a mathematical statistician can
be influential in matters of state, finance as well as in different natural sciences. Fahlbeck saw
mathematical statistics as a set of tools that sometimes could be useful in his brand of statistics.
After a summary of the organisational, educational and scientific growth of the statistical sciences in
Sweden that has taken place during the last 50 years, we discuss what effects the Charlier–Fahlbeck
divergence might have had on this development.