Taking Philosophy a Bit Too Far

THE PROBABILISTIC REVOLUTION Vol. 1: Ideas in History. Lorenz Kruger, Lorraine J. Daston and Michael Heidelberger, eds. The MIT Press. Cambridge, MA, 1987. 472 pp. $32.50. Vol. 2: Ideas in the Sciences. Lorenz Kruger, Gerd Gigerenzer and Mary S. Morgan, eds. 480 pp. $32.50. ($60 lbr set.) Eight historians, six philosophers, five historians of science, four social scientists, three psychologists, three biologists, one mathmetician and one mathematical statistician gathered in the academic year 1982-83 under the auspices of the University of Bielefeld’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research to study “The probabilistic Revolution”—the “web of changes that made probability a part of philosophy, scientific theories and practice, social policy and daily life between circa 1800 and 1950.” These two volumes contain the 35 essays that resulted from their discussions. Three essays in Volume 1 discuss the appropriateness of the title. Thomas Kuhn presents an interesting modification of his earlier ideas on scientific revolutions, stressing the change in meanings of words and their resulting taxonomies; I. Bernard Cohen exemplifies such change in the case of the word “revolution” itself; and Ian Hacking questions whether there was a probabilistic revolution between 1800 and 1950. Apart from an essay by Stephen Stigler contrasting Quetelet and Lesix, and a study of probability in insurance by Lorraine Daston, the remaining essays in this volume are of uneven quality. The sciences discussed in Volume 2 are psychology, sociology, economics, physiology, evolutionary biology and physics. Here again the quality varies. Gerd Gigerenzer gives a witty and worrying account of the ways in which inferential statistics are misused in psychology; William Coleman presents an interesting account of a mid-l9th century controversy on the statistical analysis of clinical trials, which was marred by a mistranslation of “Umsicht” as “tact” rather than “touch” or “background knowledge.” Nancy Cartwright's essay on quantum theory focuses on the early days up until 1929. It does not refer to Dirac’s robust statement in 1930 that “only questions about the results of experiments have a real significance and it is only such questions that theoretical physics has to consider.” Neither does it refer to his explicit recognition that the “ultimate” structure of matter could never rely on models of particles that represent them as made up of smaller particles, since this would lead to an infinite regress. Instead of accepting that the primary motivation of almost all scientists is to account for experimental facts, Cartwright suggests that the influence of P.W. Bridgman’s operationalism saved U.S. physicists from the philosophical worries that allegedly beset their European colleagues. A similar exaggeration of the importance of philosophical pre-suppositions is apparent in the three essays on random drift and natural selection in biological evolution. Here we find the statement that Sewall Wright was “drawing on his Wundtian panpsychism” as well as his shorthorn cattle breeding strategies in placing his emphasis on random drift. We also learn that Fisher was “moved by Christian sympathies and thermodynamical preoccupations as well as eugenic zeal” to take up the scientific attitudes he propounded. I was privileged to be at a dinner party on June 7,1955 attended by Fisher and the agnostic physicist P.M.S. Blackett. The conversation turned to questions of magnetic polar reversal and continental drift. Blackett had not yet abandoned his idea of a rotating mass origin for the magnetic fields of the Earth, the Sun and Mars. Fisher referred to recent new data from du Toit that meant, he said to Blackett, “you are going to have to accept not only polar reversal, but continental drift as well.” The idea that the final judgment of either party was going to be settled by anything other than the experimental facts would not have occurred to anyone present. It would be unjust to suggest that the authors adopt the extreme subjectivism of some “philosophers” of science. History does show that the rate of progress in science can be influenced by social attitudes and other factors, so we do need to be on guard against prejudice. Readers of this book will certainly learn many interesting historical facts. And, in these days when public understanding of science is so important, they will gain a useful impression of what science looks like to a collection of intelligent and sympathetic outsiders. Barnard is emeritus protessor of statistics at the University of Essex, Colchester C04 3SQ, UK

Taking Philosophy a Bit Too Far

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