The Empire of Chance: How Probability Changed Science and Everyday Life (Ideas in Context Series Number 12)

About this book

This book tells how quantitative ideas of chance have transformed the natural and social sciences as well as everyday life over the past three centuries. A continuous narrative connects the earliest application of probability and statistics in gambling and insurance to the most recent forays into law medicine polling and baseball. Separate chapters explore the theoretical and methodological impact on biology physics and psychology. In contrast to the literature on the mathematical development of probability and statistics this book centers on how these technical innovations recreated our conceptions of nature mind and society.