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Short Book Reviews, APPENDIX: References by Field of Application for Bayesian Vol 41 Short Book Reviews Vol. 21. No. 3 — December 2001 Editor Dr. A.M. Herzberg REVIEWS ANNOTATED READINGS IN THE HISTORY OF translated one from French; and S.L. Lauritzen one from STATISTICS. H.A. David and A.W.F. Edwards. New York: Danish. Five more articles are reproduced in their original Springer-Verlag, 2001, pp. xv + 252, US$69.95/DM151.00. English. Each article is introduced by an essay called “Comments on…”; these comments are informative, Contents: interesting and beautifully written, and contain numerous 1. The introduction of the concept of expectation (Pascal, modern connected references. The production is first class. 1654) H.A. David has used parts from this book “in a short course 2. The first formal test of significance on the history of statistics, recently, given at Iowa State (Arbuthnott, 1710) University.” The collection is fun to browse. Statistics history 3. Coincidences and the method of inclusion and buffs and browsers should order this book immediately. exclusion (Montmort, 1713; N. Bernoulli, 1713; deMoivre, 1718) University of Wisconsin 4. The determination of the accuracy of observations Madison, U.S.A. N.R. Draper (Gauss, 1816) 5. The introduction of asymptotic relative efficiency (LaPlace, 1818) 6. The logistic growth curve (Verhulst, 1845) THE LADY TASTING TEA. How Statistics Revolutionized 7. Goodness-of-fit statistics (Abbe, 1863) Science in the Twentieth Century. D. Salsburg. New York: 8. The distribution of the sample variance under Freeman, 2001, pp. xi + 340, US$23.95. normality (Helmert, 1876) Contents: 9. The random walk and its fractal limiting form 1. The lady tasting tea (Fisher, Design of Experiments) (Venn, 1888) 2. The skew distributions (Galton and Karl Pearson) 10. Estimating a binomial parameter using the likelihood 3. That dear Mr. Gosset (Student t, and both K. Pearson function (Thiele, 1889) and Fisher) 11. Yule’s paradox (“Simpson’s paradox”) (Yule, 1903) 4. Raking over the muck heap (Fisher at Rothamsted) 12. Beginnings of extreme-value theory 5. “Studies in crop variarion” (Anova and controlled (Bortkiewicz, 1922; von Mieses, 1923) randomisation) 13. The evaluation of tournament outcomes 6. “The hundred year flood” (Tippett and E.J. Gumbel) (Zermelo, 1929) 7. Fisher Triumphant (The logic of Inductive Inference, 14. The origin of confidence limits (Fisher, 1930) 1934) APPENDIX A: English Translations of Papers and Book 8. The dose that kills (Bliss and Probits) Extracts of Historical Interest (Bibliography) 9. The bell shaped curve (Lindeberg, Lévy, Höffding) APPENDIX B: First (?) Occurrence of Common Terms in 10. Testing the goodness of fit (Neyman) Statistics and Probability 11. Hypothesis testing (Neyman and E.S. Pearson) 12. The confidence trick (The AIDS epidemic and Readership: Statistics history enthusiasts confidence sets) The preface tells us that “Interest in the history of 13. The Bayesian heresy (Mosteller and Wallace, de Finetti statistics has grown substantially in recent years...“ How can and Savage) we tell? It is true that the number of historical publications 14. The Mozart of mathematics (Kolmogoroff) has grown, but how many people actually read them and what 15. The worms eye view (F.N. David) do they get out of them? Do you really want to read today a 16. Doing away with parameters (Wilcoxon, Chernoff and translation of a paper that E. Zermelo wrote in German in Savage, Pitman) 1929 about the playing strengths of chess players in a 17. When part is better than the whole (biased sampling; tournament? (The underexplained example in that article Mahalanobis) refers to the famous New York 1924 tournament; however, 18. Does smoking cause cancer? (Doll and Hill vs Fisher) chess players may be puzzled about what we can learn from 19. If you want the best person (Gertrude Cox) the relevant “playing strengths” given, since they mirror the 20. Just a plain Texas farm boy (S.S. Wilks) tournament order exactly.) If at this point in the review you 21. A genius in the family (I.J. Good) are becoming annoyed with the reviewer’s apparent attitude 22. The Picasso of statistics (J.W. Tukey) and are saying impatiently, “Of course we should study this 23. Dealing with contamination (G.E.P. Box) sort of history!”, you will enjoy this book very much. 24. The man who remade industry (W. Edwards Deming) H.A. David translated three articles from the original French, six 25. Advice from the lady in black (S.V. Cunliffe) articles from German, and one from Latin; A.W.F. Edwards 42 26. The march of the martingales (Lévy, Aalen, Andersen, MATHEMATICS OF CHANCE. J. Andel. Chichester, U.K.: Gill, Olshen) Wiley, 2001, pp. xxiii + 235, £39.50. 27. The intent to treat (Peto, Cox, Box, and Rubin) Contents: 28. The computer turns upon itself (Efron) Introduction 29. The idol with feet of clay (Kuhn) 1. Probability Afterword, timeline 2. Random walk Readership: Anyone interested in statistics, especially 3. Principle of reflection statistics students 4. Records 5. Problems that concern waiting The parentheses are reviewer’s additions, indi- 6. Problems that concern optimisation cating topics discussed. 7. Problems on calculating probability A very unusual book, containing many excellent 8. Problems on calculating expectation accounts of statistics in practice. The preface and some 9. Problems on statistical methods other chapters discuss deep issues of statistical philosophy. A 10. The LAD method fair number of amusing errors, e.g. neither of the Guinness 11. Probability in mathematics family’s two peers was Lord Guinness. A most interesting 12. Matrix games read. Readership: All students of probability theory, applied University of Essex statisticians in industry Colchester, U.K. G.A. Barnard This is a compilation of interesting and popular problems concerning mainly probability theory, with some statistics. The material is very accessible, in the most part requiring no more than basic elements of calculus. While THE SUBJECTIVITY OF SCIENTISTS AND THE BAYESIAN there are many old favourites here, there are some novelties APPROACH. S.J. Press and J.M. Tanur. New York: and some problems given a new slant through references Wiley, 2001, pp. x + 274, £57.50. to, for example, Olympiad problems and those which have Contents: appeared in the American Mathematical Monthly. The book is 1. Introduction a translation and modification of the original Czech edition. 2. Selecting the scientists There are some glitches as a result (‘dice’ as singular…), 3. Some well-known stories of extreme subjectivity but most are not crucial. The problems inspire the reader to 4. Stories of famous scientists follow up references and the style is generally very engaging. 5. Subjectivity in science in modern times: The Bayesian This is a very useful supplement to Problems and approach Snapshots from the World of Probability (Blom, Holst and Sandell – Springer-Verlag [1994; Short Book Reviews, APPENDIX: References by Field of Application for Bayesian Vol. 14, p. 22]) and the classic Fifty Challenging Problems Statistical Science in Probability (Mosteller – Addison Wesley, 1965, Dover, Readership: Professional scientists and the general public 1987). with an interest in science, in scientists, and Imperial College of Science, in the methods that scientists use Technology and Medicine This book describes the role of subjectivity and London, U.K. F.H Berkshire preconceptions in science, via a series of vignettes illustrating how famous scientists in history achieved their major advances. Chapter 3 briefly describes how Kepler, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EPIDEMIOLOGICAL METHODS. Mendel, Millikan, Burt and Mead allowed their precon- M.B. Gail and J. Benichou. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley, 2000, ceptions to influence the data they chose to use on which to pp. xxi + 978, £235.00. base their conclusions (or how they distorted or Contents: manufactured data to match their preconceptions). Chapter From Absolute Risk to Vital Statistics 4 describes the work of Aristotle, Galileo, Harvey, Newton, Lavoisier, Von Humboldt, Faraday, Darwin, Pasteur, Freud, Readership: Epidemiologists, statisticians working in Curie and Einstein. Each of the sections in Chapter 4 is epidemiology divided into a brief historical sketch, an outline of their This volume contains a selection of excellent scientific contribution, a list of their major works, and a articles on many of the concepts, methods and tools that discussion of the role of subjectivity in the work. Most of researchers working in epidemiology require. It is difficult to these people are now regarded as having made a major judge whether the selected topics would satisfy all contribution, but some of them are now regarded as little appetites, as the field is becoming richer and more better than examples of self-deception. It is interesting to diversified. However, when consulting this volume regularly have them all examined from the same perspective, in over the last two months, while investigating new projects which their preconceptions drive their theoretical and supporting students’ dissertations, I have always found developments. comprehensive and clear overviews at hand. As far as the role of bias, preconceptions and All entries are linked to each other by web-style subjectivity is concerned in science, this book is fascinating. cross-referencing and are enriched by up-to-date, but also However, in many of the cases it seems contrived to attach historical, references for more in-depth reading. Most of the it to today’s formal methods of Bayesian inference. contributions are also rich of valuable insights in the topic, Imperial College of Science, although sometimes the “encyclopaedic” style becomes rigid Technology and Medicine and too many classifications and sub-classifications are London, U.K. D.J. Hand offered, for instance with differing listings of types of bias. The articles are written by experts based in well as some differences. Many of the methodological North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. articles already appeared in the Encyclopedia of Biostatistics Hence there is a wide perspective on several of the topics, as but others have been added to cover specific issues, such as 43 “birth cohort studies” and “cancer registries”, or to introduce 12.
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