scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1943779

The author's main subject is the fate of the Bayesian approach in the first half of the 20th century. He describes the relevant work and opinion of Fisher and Jeffreys making available unpublished material concerning the latter and pays attention to the application of probability to physics and biology and to general scientific problems (simplicity of laws of nature). No clear definitions of the main notions (inverse probability, principle of insufficient reason) are offered which means that his readers do not need them, but then the author provides a definition of an effective estimator, and a wrong one at that (p. 66). He forgets that Lyapunov proved the central limit theorem (p. 216) and and does not know (p. 219) that dialectical materialism recognizes the connection between necessity and randomness. His use of rare words (to decouple, p. 216; to laud, p. 225) is regrettable. The previous history of probability theory as discussed in a preliminary chapter is a complete failure. Several from among the 15 mistakes noticed by me concern our classics (Graunt, p. 15; De Moivre, p. 20; Poisson, p. 20, who ``tinkered with calculations, p. 29; and Newton, who allegedly thought that the system of the world was stable rather than needing regular Divine reformation, pp. 27 and 200. Some quotations are given without any references being adduced, p. 32, and, on p. 54 Mendel is called a Czech monk. Mendel was always considered as of Czech -- German origin, but he was German and in 1945 the descendants of his relatives were driven out of the then Czechoslovakia (W. Mann, grandson of Mendel's nephew, private communication).

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