Subject: Re: [HM] History of mathematical statistics
From: Ivo Schneider (Ivo.Schneider@UniBw-Muenchen.de)
Date: Mon Jan 03 2000 - 09:22:53 EST
Don Cook refers to p. XI of the preface of Porter's "The Rise of
Statistical Thinking 1820-1900", Princeton UP 1986. A page before the exact
bibliographical data for vol. I of the "two-volume collection from a
1982-83 research project at the Zentrum fur interdisziplinare Forschung of
the University of Bielefeld" are given as:
Lorenz Kr"uger, Lorraine Daston, Michael Heidelberger, eds., The Probabilistic
Revolution, vol. I, Ideas in History, Cambridge (Mass.) 1987. I add:
Lorenz Kr"uger, Gerd Gigerenzer, and Mary S. Morgan, eds., The Probabilistic
Revolution, vol. II, Ideas in the Sciences, MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1987.
Porter referred too to Daston's doctoral thesis in a footnote on p. 71 which
appeared only in 1988 in bookform as:
Lorraine Daston, Classical probability in the enlightenment, Princeton
University Press 1988.
On p. 150 Porter refers to Hacking's book which appeared only in 1990 and
for which I can refer you to Ralph A. Raimi's e-mail. From it one learns
that Hacking, who is currently considered as one of the leading philosophers
in the English speaking world, is very selective concerning the contacts he
wants to have to.
Concerning Stigler's book which is also contained in Porter's list of
abbreviations on p. X enough has been said in previous e-mails by others.
Stigler is at any rate a working mathematician with strong historical
interests concerning his own field, the history of statistics. As a
historian he appreciates the work especially of Daston and Porter. They,
however, consider themselves as cultural or intellectual historians, for
whom, as Porter puts it on p. 3 of his book "the identification of
statistics as a category of knowledge was first of all a scientific
accomplishment, and not a purely mathematical one". In the same sense
Daston provides an early warning in her book "Classical probability" that
"the case of classical probability theory is less dramatic in a
mathematical sense" (p.5).
So for the historian of mathematics and the historically interested
mathematician who is mainly concerned with the development of appropriate
mathematical tools and their application the books of Porter, Daston,
Hacking and the two volumes on "The probabilistic revolution" contain
little which seems apt to satisfy such an appetite.
Let me wish you all, especially Julio, who is so generous with his time and
his knowledge a happy 2000.
Ivo
> Dear Yuri,
> I have read about 1/3 of "The Rise of Statistical Thinking 1820-1900",
> Theodore M. Porter, 1986, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-08416-5
> The book, so far, is more philosophical than mathematical, more
> concerned with descriptive statistics than inferential statistics. The book
> grew out of Porter's dissertation. He mentions five other books that came
> out in the 80's but only gives the authors: Lorraine Daston, Ian Hicking,
> and Stephen Stigler, and a two-volume collection from a 1982-83 research
> project at the Zentrum fur interdisziplinare Forschung of the University of
> Bielefeld (umlauts omitted due to email limitations). Porter says that all
> five books are different but I imagine that they are of more interest to
> social scientists and biologists.
> Peace and have a wonderful new century,
> Don Cook
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