What does an 18th-century English minister have in common with such modern innovations as e-mail spam filters, Google searches, and even Clippy, the iconic (and sometimes reviled) paperclip-shaped Microsoft Office Assistant? In The Theory That Would Not Die, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne depicts the quiet birth and controversial coming of age
While a staple in modern-day statistics classes, Bayes’ rule, as immortalized in our statistics textbooks, has been killed and revived several times. Although public opinion on this theory has waxed and waned dramatically, was Bayes’ rule ever fully dismissed? Sharon Bertsch McGrayne in her book, The Theory That Would Not Die: