The Empire of Chance: How Probability Changed Science and Everyday LifeCambridge University Press, 1989 - 340 pages This book tells how quantitative ideas of chance have transformed the natural and social sciences as well as everyday life over the past three centuries. A continuous narrative connects the earliest application of probability and statistics in gambling and insurance to the most recent forays into law, medicine, polling, and baseball. Separate chapters explore the theoretical and methodological impact on biology, physics, and psychology. In contrast to the literature on the mathematical development of probability and statistics, this book centers on how these technical innovations recreated our conceptions of nature, mind, and society. |
Contents
Classical probabilities 16601840 | 1 |
12 The beginnings | 2 |
13 The classical interpretation | 6 |
14 Determinism | 11 |
15 Reasonableness | 14 |
16 Risk in gambling and insurance | 19 |
17 Evidence and causes | 26 |
18 The moral sciences | 32 |
The probabilistic revolution in physics | 163 |
the epistemic interpretation | 166 |
sources of probabilism | 170 |
54 Comments of the three limitations | 175 |
55 Mass phenomena and propensities | 179 |
56 Explanations from probabilistic assumptions | 182 |
57 The puzzle of irreversibility in time | 187 |
58 The discontinuity underlying all change | 190 |
19 Conclusion | 34 |
Statistical probabilities 18201900 | 37 |
22 Statistical regularity and lhomme moyen | 38 |
23 Opposition to statistics | 45 |
24 Statistics and variation | 48 |
25 The error law and correlation | 53 |
26 The statistical critique of determinism | 59 |
27 Conclusion | 68 |
The inference experts | 70 |
32 Analysis of variance | 73 |
early significance tests and comparative experimentation | 79 |
Fisher vs Neyman and Pearson | 90 |
the silent solution | 106 |
intellectual autonomy | 109 |
institutions and influence | 115 |
38 Conclusion | 120 |
Chance and life controversies in modern biology | 123 |
chance in physiology | 124 |
chance in natural history | 132 |
chance in genetics | 141 |
chance in evolutionary biology | 152 |
Statistics of the mind | 203 |
62 The prestatistical period | 204 |
63 The new tools | 205 |
64 From tools to theories of mind | 211 |
from thinking to judgments under uncertainty | 214 |
66 The return of the reasonable man | 226 |
67 Conclusion | 233 |
Numbers rule the world | 235 |
72 New objects | 237 |
73 New values | 251 |
74 New rules | 263 |
75 Conclusion | 270 |
The implications of chance | 271 |
82 What does probability mean? | 274 |
83 Determinism | 276 |
84 Mechanized inference | 286 |
85 Statistical Lebensgefuhl | 289 |
| 293 | |
| 327 | |
| 334 | |
Common terms and phrases
analysis applications argued assumptions average base rates baseball Bayes Bayesian Bernoulli biologists biology Boltzmann calculation causal causes chance classical physics classical probabilists concept Darwin Design of Experiments determinism deterministic distribution effect error evidence evolution evolutionary example experiment experimental explain Fisherian frequencies Galton ideas important indeterminism individual interpretation Jakob Bernoulli Jerzy Neyman judgment Karl Pearson Laplace large numbers mathematical probability mathematicians matter Maxwell mean measure mechanics Mendelian molecules moral motion natural selection Neyman and Pearson Neyman-Pearson Nicholas Bernoulli nineteenth century null hypothesis objective observations offspring phenomena philosophical physicists population prior probability prob probabilistic probability and statistics probability theory problems processes psychology quantum quantum mechanics question Quetelet R. A. Fisher radiation random rational reason rejection sample scientific scientists sense significance testing social society statis statistical inference statistical methods statisticians techniques theorem thermodynamics traditional Univ variability variation
Popular passages
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