Ocean waves are "emergent phenomena" that arise out of the complexity of forces active in a large body of water. Photo by Chris Potter.
We analyze how probability and statistics transformed our ideas of nature,
mind and society. These transformations have been profound and wide ranging,
changing the structure of power as well as of knowledge. They have shaped
modern bureaucracy as well as the modern sciences. The extraordinary range
and significance of these transformations has rarely been appreciated,
perhaps because the influence of probability on the various sciences has
until now been studied piecemeal. Also, the domain of probability and statistics
was less often expanded by decisive conquest and revolution than by infiltration
and alliance. In this book, we view these transformations synoptically,
as a single historical movement – one whose influence on
modern thought and life is second to no other area of scientific endeavor.
(xiv-xv)
All six of us were members of the year-long research
project on ‘The Probabilistic Revolution’ at
the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Bielefeld, Federal Republic
of Germany. Essays written by participants in this project now fill two
thick volumes (Kruger, Daston and Heidelberger, eds., 1987; Kruger, Gigerenzer,
and Morgan, eds., 1987) that demonstrate the importance of the topic across
a wide range of fields, nations and centuries. Our subset of six hoped
to condense and connect the elements contained in these essays into a single
narrative, one that viewed the growth of probabilistic and statistical
ideas from a unified prospective. (xvii)
Gigerenzer, Gerd; Swijtink, Zeno; Porter, Theodore; Daston, Lorraine; Beatty, John; & Kruger, Lorenz. The Empire of Chance: How probability changed science and everyday life, Cambridge University Press 1989
