Demography typifies paradigmatic success; that is, cumulative
scientific work that has provided useful perspectives on a set
of important questions. This success can be traced partly to
the core subject matter of demography, which is relatively conducive
to quantitative, observational science. The development of demography
was further aided by extrinsic factors, such as the import of
its data for government administration, for business purposes,
and the import of demographic questions for social problems
and public policy. These observations make suspect any simple
projection of demography's success into the future or the transport
of its experience to other disciplines.
