Title
The theory that would not die [electronic resource] : how Bayes' rule cracked the enigma code, hunted down Russian submarines, and emerged triumphant from two centuries of controversy / Sharon Bertsch McGrayne.
ISBN
9780300175097 (electronic book)
9780300169690
Publication Details
New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, 2011.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (xiii, 320 p.)
Call Number
QA279.5 .M415 2011eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
519.5/42
Summary
"Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok. In the first-ever account of Bayes' rule for general readers, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explores this controversial theorem and the human obsessions surrounding it. She traces its discovery by an amateur mathematician in the 1740s through its development into roughly its modern form by French scientist Pierre Simon Laplace. She reveals why respected statisticians rendered it professionally taboo for 150 years--at the same time that practitioners relied on it to solve crises involving great uncertainty and scanty information, even breaking Germany's Enigma code during World War II, and explains how the advent of off-the-shelf computer technology in the 1980s proved to be a game-changer. Today, Bayes' rule is used everywhere from DNA de-coding to Homeland Security. Drawing on primary source material and interviews with statisticians and other scientists, The Theory That Would Not Die is the riveting account of how a seemingly simple theorem ignited one of the greatest controversies of all time"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on print version record.
pt. 1. Enlightenment and the anti-Bayesian reaction
Causes in the air
The man who did everything
Many doubts, few defenders
pt. 2. Second World War era
Bayes goes to war
Dead and buried again
pt. 3. The glorious revival
Arthur Bailey
From tool to theology
Jerome Cornfield, lung cancer, and heart attacks
There's always a first time
46,656 varieties
pt. 4. To prove its worth
Business decisions
Who wrote The Federalist?
The cold warrior
Three Mile Island
The Navy searches
pt. 5. Victory
Eureka!
Rosetta stones
Appendixes
Dr. Fisher's casebook
Applying Baye's Rule to mammograms and breast cancer.
