50 Years Ago

“We wuz robbed” — The World Cup which has recently been enacted in Britain may have been fun to watch, but there is no question that it was a thoroughly badly designed experiment ... The mere fact that a Poisson distribution can describe so well the distribution of scores by individual teams goes a long way to suggest that the teams were much of a muchness in talent and their scores were independent of each other. From this point of view, the decision that the outcome of the whole competition should depend on the outcome of a single game between the two so-called finalists was as much of a farce as a great many West German supporters already know it to have been ... If, for example, it were agreed that ... no team should be declared the winner until its score exceeds that of its opponent by three standard deviations of Poisson distribution, it might be necessary to design the game of football so that it would be practicable for one side to score 100 goals or so ... Such a change could easily be brought about, possibly by widening the goalposts or by abolishing goalkeepers.

From Nature 13 August 1966

100 Years Ago

The History of the Family. By Prof. W. Goodsell — In what sense is it right to speak of the history of the family? ... Can it be said to have a history? ... Some such questions as these arise in one's mind as one takes up Prof. Goodsell's book ... even a casual reader will be struck by a want of precise references in certain of the chapters ... Where is the “weight of evidence” which shows that polygamy is unpopular among savage women? The author gives several reasons why we condemn it, but there is surely room for doubt ...

From Nature 10 August 1916