Erling B. Andersen 1939 - 2004 - Pabst Science Publishers

Psychology Science, Volume 46, 2004 (4), p. 554 - 555
Erling B. Andersen
1939 - 2004
It was only a few days before his 65th birthday that Erling B. Andersen died on September
18, 2004. He always was very proud of the letter B in his name which goes back to his
father Bernhard Andersen who was a prominent high school teacher of mathematics at his
time. And he was proud of his son Søren with whom he shares authorship of CATANA, a
computer program for the analysis of categorical data.
Erling was what may be called the first genuine statistician in Denmark, because he was
the first candidate of the then called new candidate studies in statistics in Denmark in 1963.
His focus was on mathematical statistics and the development of new methodologies for the
analysis of intelligence tests and, more generally, social data. He made a quick career in the
academic field by winning a gold medal in 1965, becoming professor at the Agricultural
High School in 1971 and defending his doctoral thesis in 1973. In 1974 he was appointed
Professor at the Institute of Statistics, University of Copenhagen, taking the chair earlier held
by Georg Rasch.
There is no doubt, that Erling is one of the most prominent scientists throughout the
world to promote, contribute to and extend on what is well known in psychometrics and,
more generally, in social statistics as the Rasch model. He has published numerous articles in
top journals like Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, British Journal of Mathematical and
Statistical Psychology, Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Journal of the American Statistical
Association, Psychometrika or Applied Psychological Measurement. He as well published
outstanding books like Discrete Statistical Models with Social Science Applications (1980)
and Introduction to the Statistical Analysis of Categorical Data (1997). Memberships in
Editorial Boards and invitations to give talks in seminars, workshops and conferences around
the world were but a natural consequence. We especially valued Erling’s expertise as a
speaker, chair and discussant in conferences that we organized in Kiel (1985), Sankelmark
(1994) and Lüneburg (1999).
As scientist, Erling was known world wide. But he also was an expert writer in different
other fields that he was strongly interested in. One of these was football (soccer), where he
published a book entitled Professionel fodboldspiller i utlandet - en succes?, which deals with
professional Danish football players in foreign countries. Another book (Har du en chance? -
i tips, lotto og andre spil), where he shows how to maximize one’s profit, obviously goes
back to his working as a consultant for the Danish Lotto Agency. In the past few years he
also published two volumes of his family’s history, a subject of great importance to him.
We highly esteem and miss Erling also for a number of other reasons: He was a gourmet
cook of note. With his French horn he was a member of different musical groups. One of
these was the Dansk Amatørorchester, a second one a septet. And there was The Rasch

Erling B. Anderson, 1939 - 2004 555
Brass, a brass quartet founded in 1999 on the occasion of the 11th European Meeting of the
Psychometric Society by colleagues, all of whom have in common that they published on the
Rasch model and play a brass instrument. Finally, we miss the many long talks with Erling
on the development in the analysis of categorical data during the past 30 years (and other
topics in social statistics), his stories about Georg Rasch, whom he obviously admired very
much, and the many long talks on what else came on the table, families, hobbies, history or
politics.
Rolf Langeheine
Jürgen Rost