S. James Press

Judith M. Tanur

Subjectivity of Scientists and the Bayesian Approach

Leon J. Gleser

Michael D. Perlman

Allan R. Sampson

Published in honor of the sixty-fifth birthday of Professor Ingram Olkin of Stanford University. Part I contains a brief biography of Professor Olkin and an interview with him discussing his career and his research interests. Part II contains 32 technical papers written in Professor Olkin's honor by his collaborators, colleagues, and Ph.D. students. These original papers cover a wealth of topics in mathematical and applied statistics, including probability inequalities and characterizations, multivariate analysis and association, linear and nonlinear models, ranking and selection, experimental design, and approaches to statistical inference. The volume reflects the wide range of Professor Olkin's interests in and contributions to research in statistics, and provides an overview of new developments in these areas of research.

Essays in Honor of Ingram Olkin

Contributions to Probability and Statistics

Comparing and contrasting the reality of subjectivity in the workof history's great scientists and the modern Bayesian approach tostatistical analysis Scientists and researchers are taught to analyze their data from anobjective point of view, allowing the data to speak for themselvesrather than assigning them meaning based on expectations oropinions. But scientists have never behaved fully objectively.Throughout history, some of our greatest scientific minds haverelied on intuition, hunches, and personal beliefs to make sense ofempirical data-and these subjective influences have often aided inhumanity's greatest scientific achievements. The authors argue thatsubjectivity has not only played a significant role in theadvancement of science, but that science will advance more rapidlyif the modern methods of Bayesian statistical analysis replace someof the classical twentieth-century methods that have traditionallybeen taught. To accomplish this goal, the authors examine the lives and work ofhistory's great scientists and show that even the most successfulhave sometimes misrepresented findings or been influenced by theirown preconceived notions of religion, metaphysics, and the occult,or the personal beliefs of their mentors. Contrary to popularbelief, our greatest scientific thinkers approached their data witha combination of subjectivity and empiricism, and thus informallyachieved what is more formally accomplished by the modern Bayesianapproach to data analysis. Yet we are still taught that science is purely objective. Thisinnovative book dispels that myth using historical accounts andbiographical sketches of more than a dozen great scientists,including Aristotle, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, WilliamHarvey, Sir Isaac Newton, Antoine Levoisier, Alexander vonHumboldt, Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, GregorMendel, Sigmund Freud, Marie Curie, Robert Millikan, AlbertEinstein, Sir Cyril Burt, and Margaret Mead. Also included is adetailed treatment of the modern Bayesian approach to dataanalysis. Up-to-date references to the Bayesian theoretical andapplied literature, as well as reference lists of the primarysources of the principal works of all the scientists discussed,round out this comprehensive treatment of the subject. Readers will benefit from this cogent and enlightening view of thehistory of subjectivity in science and the authors' alternativevision of how the Bayesian approach should be used to further thecause of science and learning well into the twenty-first century.

The Subjectivity of Scientists and the Bayesian Approach

Seymour Geisser

James S. Hodges

Essays in Honor of George A. Barnard

Bayesian and Likelihood Methods in Statistics and Econometrics

Intriguing examination of works by Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Pasteur, Einstein, Margaret Mead, and other scientists in terms of subjectivity and the Bayesian approach to statistical analysis. "An insightful work." — Choice. 2001 edition.

S. James Press

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