My Book says that statistics were first used by John Graunt in 1662, when he published a paper entitled Natural and political observations made upon Bills of Mortality. According to this account, he studied the records in London mortuaries, and then devised probabilities as to what would be the most likely cause of death in different age groups.

However, it was Sir William Petty (an acquaintance of Graunt), who was the first to actively apply this new mathematics to economics and politics. He used these accounting practices to justify a type of “land grab” in Ireland.

The scariest passage from the book is this, "Yet, if the countryside [in Ireland] and its people could be reduced to figures, so too could everything else. Petty foresaw a day when a nation's power, its art, and even its opinions would be calculated by 'political arithmetick'. Eloquence, reputation and authority would be all measured. This may seem extreme when stated so baldly, but it was very much a reflection of current rationalistic optimism."