Preface
Chapter 1: The Ancient Law of Proof
Chapter 2: The Medieval Law of Evidence: Suspicion, Half-proof, and
the Inquisition
Chapter 3: Renaissance Law
Chapter 4: The Doubting Conscience and Moral Certainty
Chapter 5: Rhetoric, Logic, Theory
Chapter 6: Hard Science
Chapter 7: Soft Science and History
Chapter 8: Philosophy: Action and Induction
Chapter 9: Religion: Laws of God, Laws of Nature
Chapter 10: Aleatory Contracts: Insurance, Annuities, and Bets
Chapter 11: Dice
Chapter 12: Conclusion
Epilogue: The Survival of Unquantified Probability
James Franklin is a professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New South Wales.
A remarkable book. Mr. Franklin writes clearly and exhibits a wry
wit. But he also ranges knowledgeably across many disciplines and
over many centuries.
—Wall Street Journal
The Science of Conjecture opens an old chest of human attempts to
draw order from havoc and wipes clean the rust from some cast-off
classical tools that can now be reused to help build a framework
for the unpredictable future.
—Science
Franklin's style is clear and fluent, with an occasional sly
Gibbonian aside to make the reader chuckle.
—New Criterion
An admirably accessible study written in a crisp prose. It presents
the reader with anarching historical perspective throughout many a
century of human action.
—Giora Hon, Centaurus
Franklin gives a magisterial account of matters as diverse as the
Talmud, Justinian's Digest, torture, witch hunts, Tudor treason
trials, ancient and medieval astronomy and physics, humanist
historiography, scholastic philosophy, speculations in public debt,
and 17th century mathematics. His treatment of medieval law is
among the best I have ever read.
—International Journal of Evidence and Proof
Franklin's book is magnificent . . . Think of [it] as a non-fiction
equivalent of Tolstoy's War and Peace.
—Peter Tillers, The Jurist
The Science of Conjecture is a masterly work, beautifully written,
and based on encyclopaedic research . . . It is simply a tour de
force that is unlikely to be surpassed for many a year.
—Barry Miller, The Thomist
Statistics teachers who like to sprinkle a little history and
philosophy into their classes will find much here to delight and
challenge them . . . This is a serious and scholarly work that I
expect often will inform my teaching.
—Richard J. Cleary, Journal of the American Statistical
Association
[This book has given me] sheer enjoyment in its density of strange
information, in the wit and clarity if its writing, and in the
vigour of its argumentation. I recommend it unreservedly to all
interested in its subject.
—Oliver Mayo, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics
This is the intellectual book of the year, and it ought to become
one of the great classics of intellectual history.
—Scott Campbell, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews
The strength of The Science of Conjecture lies in its panoramic
exposition of developments across the centuries and across
intellectual disciplines and human endeavors. It is, as one
reviewer wrote, 'a magesterial account of matters as diverse as the
Talmud, Justinian's Digest, torture, witch hunts, Tudor treason
trials, ancient and medieval astronomy and physics, humanist
histriography, scholastic philosophy, speculations in public debt,
and 17th century mathematics.'
—D. H. Kaye, Law and History Review
A remarkable book. Mr. Franklin writes clearly and exhibits a wry
wit. But he also ranges knowledgeably across many disciplines and
over many centuries. There are several reasons to read this book,
but perhaps the best reason is its contemporary relevance. The
lessons he discusses have pertinence to an age like ours, which has
witnessed a gradual waning of faith in the objectivity of the
relation of uncertain evidence to conclusion.
—Wall Street Journal
In The Science of Conjecture, James Franklin shows us how deeply
and subtly jurists and philosophers from ancient Greece onwards
have explored how we can deal rationally with real-life cases (law
cases, for instance, or scientific experiments) where the link
between cause and effect is not obvious.
—J.M. Coetzee, The Australian
Since many in the nominalist/empiricist/positivist tradition deny
that we can know natures, this book has a place in teacher
education as well as legal education for the challenges it poses
the reader on how we know, and how well we know, through induction,
perception and abstraction.
—Metascience
The text has an even wider importance in that it signals the need
for more, not less, study of the history, philosophy and social
studies in science to occupy a greater space in undergraduate
degrees so that an educated electorate is better able to evaluate
what the STEM community tells us is good for the progress of
society.
—Metascience
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