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The Theory That Would Not Die Audiobook by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
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Title: The Theory That Would Not Die
Subtitle: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
Author: Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
Narrator: Laural Merlington
Format: Unabridged
Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
Language: English
Release date: 03-30-12
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 255 votes
Genres: History, World
Publisher's Summary:
Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok.
In the first-ever account of Bayes' rule for general readers and listeners, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explores this controversial theorem and the human obsessions surrounding it. She traces its discovery by an amateur mathematician in the 1740s through its development into roughly its modern form by French scientist Pierre Simon Laplace. She reveals why respected statisticians rendered it professionally taboo for 150 years - at the same time that practitioners relied on it to solve crises involving great uncertainty and scanty information, even breaking Germany's Enigma code during World War II, and explains how the advent of off-the-shelf computer technology in the 1980s proved to be a game-changer. Today, Bayes' rule is used everywhere from DNA decoding to Homeland Security.
Drawing on primary source material and interviews with statisticians and other scientists, The Theory That Would Not Die is the riveting account of how a seemingly simple theorem ignited one of the greatest controversies of all time.
Critic Reviews:
"If you are not thinking like a Bayesian, perhaps you should be." (New York Times Book Review)
Members Reviews:
Read Up on Baye's Before Reading
Sharon McGrayne tackles Bayes Rule in her volume The Theory that Would Not Die. Along the way she shows how the rule has gone under only to reappear in different times, be used in different places, and gather influence under varied circumstances. I found the narrative engaging and the history she presents informative. I wish, however, that she had had an early chapter discussing what Bayes Rule is, how it works, and what it means to users. Bayes Rule is well available to those with simple math ability and it seems the book would have a wider audience had she made this allowance. So, if you are familiar with Bayes Theorem pick up the book and turn some pages. If you are not familiar with the theorem, read up on it a little and then turn those pages. There are unexpected insights in every chapter. The narration of Laural Merlington is good.
Poorly read
What did you like about this audiobook?
Did a good job of constructing a story about a particular statistical technique. She overdoes it. Bayes theorm is not the same as the story of Seabiscuit.
What did you find wrong about the narrator's performance?
At first I thought she was a computer generated voice. Her cadence was was odd, adding syllables at random. Many names were mispronounced.
Who is the intended audience?
The book would totally baffle me if I didn't do statistics for a living because McGrayne doesn't even give an example of how Bayes' Rule works until about halfway through the book (using the cigarettes study as an example). She merely tells us that frequentists don't like it but don't explain the underly differences between their approaches.
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Title: The Theory That Would Not Die
Subtitle: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
Author: Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
Narrator: Laural Merlington
Format: Unabridged
Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
Language: English
Release date: 03-30-12
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 255 votes
Genres: History, World
Publisher's Summary:
Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok.
In the first-ever account of Bayes' rule for general readers and listeners, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explores this controversial theorem and the human obsessions surrounding it. She traces its discovery by an amateur mathematician in the 1740s through its development into roughly its modern form by French scientist Pierre Simon Laplace. She reveals why respected statisticians rendered it professionally taboo for 150 years - at the same time that practitioners relied on it to solve crises involving great uncertainty and scanty information, even breaking Germany's Enigma code during World War II, and explains how the advent of off-the-shelf computer technology in the 1980s proved to be a game-changer. Today, Bayes' rule is used everywhere from DNA decoding to Homeland Security.
Drawing on primary source material and interviews with statisticians and other scientists, The Theory That Would Not Die is the riveting account of how a seemingly simple theorem ignited one of the greatest controversies of all time.
Critic Reviews:
"If you are not thinking like a Bayesian, perhaps you should be." (New York Times Book Review)
Members Reviews:
Read Up on Baye's Before Reading
Sharon McGrayne tackles Bayes Rule in her volume The Theory that Would Not Die. Along the way she shows how the rule has gone under only to reappear in different times, be used in different places, and gather influence under varied circumstances. I found the narrative engaging and the history she presents informative. I wish, however, that she had had an early chapter discussing what Bayes Rule is, how it works, and what it means to users. Bayes Rule is well available to those with simple math ability and it seems the book would have a wider audience had she made this allowance. So, if you are familiar with Bayes Theorem pick up the book and turn some pages. If you are not familiar with the theorem, read up on it a little and then turn those pages. There are unexpected insights in every chapter. The narration of Laural Merlington is good.
Poorly read
What did you like about this audiobook?
Did a good job of constructing a story about a particular statistical technique. She overdoes it. Bayes theorm is not the same as the story of Seabiscuit.
What did you find wrong about the narrator's performance?
At first I thought she was a computer generated voice. Her cadence was was odd, adding syllables at random. Many names were mispronounced.
Who is the intended audience?
The book would totally baffle me if I didn't do statistics for a living because McGrayne doesn't even give an example of how Bayes' Rule works until about halfway through the book (using the cigarettes study as an example). She merely tells us that frequentists don't like it but don't explain the underly differences between their approaches.