The Probabilistic Revolution

Ideas in History

Lorenz Krüger, Lorraine Daston (Max Planck Institute for History of Science), Michael Heidelberger

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English

MIT Press
14 March 1990

History of ideas

Series: A Bradford Book

Probability ideas are the success story common to the growth of the modern natural and social sciences. Chance, indeterminism, and statistical inference have radically and globally transformed the sciences in a ""probabilistic revolution."" This monumental work traces the rise, the transformation, and the diffusion of probabilistic and statistical thinking in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is less concerned with specific technical discoveries than with locating the probability revolution historically within a larger framework of ideas. There is no comparable study that treats the rise of probability and statistics in such scope and depth.

The contributors - scientists, historians and philosophers from eight countries - make it possible for readers trained in many disciplines to see why the probabilistic revolution has been so complete and so successful, and how the rejection of uniform causality by quantum physics, the stochastic nature of evolutionary biology, the indeterminisms of human psychology, and the random processes of many economic activities are all manifestations of an underlying unifying concept.

Volume 1 opens with provocative essays on scientific revolutions in general and the probabilistic revolution in particular by Thomas S. Kuhn, I. Bernard Cohen, and Ian Hacking. Other authors discuss the evolution of philosophical ideas about probability and their articulation and elaboration in the mathematics of the nineteenth century and describe the first applications of techniques of statistical inference during that century- Topics include the uses and abuses of official statistics by the bureaucrats of France, England, and Prussia; the use - or neglect - of statistics by nascent sociologists, demographers, and insurance actuaries; and the emergence of statistical methodologies in fields ranging from social reform to agricultural production. The emphasis in volume 2 is on the more recent scientific advances of the probabilistic approach in various natural and social sciences, from ""random walks"" in the stock market to random drift in natural selection, and from indeterminate events at the atomic level to unpredictable actions at the human level.

Edited by: Lorenz Krüger, Lorraine Daston (Max Planck Institute for History of Science), Michael Heidelberger
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 726g
ISBN: 9780262610629
ISBN 10: 0262610620
Series: A Bradford Book
Pages: 472
Publication Date: 14 March 1990
Recommended Age: From 18
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational , A / AS level , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Lorenz Kr ger is a philosopher of science at G ttingen University. Lorraine Daston is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and Visiting Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. She is the coauthor (with Katharine Park) of Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750 and (with Peter Galison) Objectivity and the editor of Things that Talk- Object Lessons from Art and Science, all three published by Zone Books. Michael Heidelberger is a philosopher of science at G ttingen University.

Reviews for The Probabilistic Revolution: Ideas in History

I can think of no other comparable work that comes even close to covering the same important material in the history of science and philosophy. Patrick Suppes, Lucie Stern Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University