Swedish scientist attack on the naive Gauss curve
Carl Vilhelm Ludwig Charlier, Swedish astronomer and mathematician 1920:
"The responsibility for stagnation in the development of mathematical statistics until recent years rests principally upon Gauss. The great mathematcian belived it possible to demonstrate that the fluctuations of the items of a statistical series --- he was concerned chiefely with astronomical and geodeic observations – followed the simple law which was called after him, the Gaussian law of error. He belived the deviations from the law were accidential and would disapper if the obervations increased.
In the field of non-astronomical statistics Quetelet, perhaps, is the one who has applied the Gaussian law with the most important consequences. His theory of types is one of the most fundamental propositions of statistics if, from it, one must conclude that the mathematical type necessarily correspond to an actual (physical, biological) type of statistical objects. In coming to his conclusion Quetelet was guilty of gross exaggeration and, consequently, contrary to his intention, brought mathematical statistics greatly into scientific discredit, for it is not wholly free to this day."
How could it be that most popular risk measurements and hedging methods could relay on Gaussian type models in this recent time, when it at least by early 1900 was empirically observed that this was not the fact and several leading scientist attacked the Gaussian method already back then.
Almost 100 years with stagnation in the development now needs to be addressed.
