Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

Bayes is a statistical technique for estimating probability that starts off with a guess as an initial condition. This guess has brought it a lot of flack since it was invented in about 1760 from scientists and mathematicians who find the guess unscientific. For most of the 250 years since then it has been niche technique, not quite acceptable in polite mathematical circles, if not provoking outright hostility. However, its influence has grown hugely since the advent of computers which make show more the enormous calculations it requires practical. Surprisingly gripping yarn and very approachable. Recommended. show less

Sharon McGrayne is a very good and engaging writer. She has an interesting story to tell about the last 250 years of Bayesian thinking, how the theory has developed, and its many applications including how to price insurance, how to aim artillery, how to break the Enigma code, who wrote The Federalist Papers, how to find Russian nuclear subs, how to estimate the probability of a shuttle disaster, when to do various cancer screenings, whether cigarette smoking is harmful, etc. She also has a show more great set of characters, a parade of statisticians who are more colorful than I could have imagined, from the pioneers of Bayes, Price and Laplace to most recent statisticians like Cornfield, Tukey and Mosteller.

But, the book is deeply flawed and disappointing because it does so little to actually explain Bayes Theorem, how it was applied, how it led to different confusions than frequentism, and how the two have recently been theoretically synthesized. Most of this is not very complicated, one knows a decent amount already, but it would be more interesting to understand hot it was applied. Instead, the book concentrates much more on personality and the more surface descriptions rather than dwelling deeper and working out at least a few examples in more detail, both more of the theory from first principals but also better understanding what data and calculations various of her protagonists were using. Absent that, the book is often literally superficial.

Still, the book has a lot of upside -- but given that there is not exactly a huge selection of books covering this ground (unlike, say, quantum mechanics) to have this as nearly the sole choice is disappointing. show less

Students struggling in an introductory chemistry course with the difficulties of the subject’s fundamentals could be forgiven for thinking no individuals that they’d care to know were involved. Chemistry can seem a sort of hidden subterranean conjuring governed by obscure wizards with bent bodies and crumpled, cranky souls whose products, as an 18th century visitor to Liverpool noted, were “pills, coal, glass, chemicals, cripples, millionaires, and paupers.” Is that fair?

Well, mostly show more no. In Sharon Bertsch McGrayne’s Prometheans in the Lab we meet some important actors in the story. They’re worth hearing about. Readers already averse to chemistry’s technicalities will find a few chemical structures and equations with which to grapple but these aren’t often an impediment.

The author has assembled a diverse group (if one is permitted to call an all-male group “diverse”) who reveal a spectrum of character to admire or decry. In the final chapter, we find a hero in Clair C. Patterson, whose work led famed novelist Saul Bellow to nominate him for the Nobel Prize. We are brought to appreciate the social contexts in which these men worked. The stories present the complexities of attempting that which benefits us at risk of damaging us too. The author doesn’t much pursue explicitly how to reconcile such diverging effects or how to value one act over another and perhaps it’d be a stronger book had she attended to it more. That could, however, detract from the narratives she chose to tell, narratives which interested and surprised me. These stories make Prometheans in the Lab a fine contribution among books discussing chemistry. show less

Unfortunately a little light on the maths - Bayes famous equation barely makes the cut. However, it is a good and fascinating read, even if it's a little too detailed. This must be the authoritative history of the subject. And it's tweaked my interest enough to build some spreadsheet models and download some of the key papers it refers to. I found the descriptions of the optimal search strategies (e.g. for submarines, or lost nuclear bombs) totally fascinating. Thoroughly recomended.