Re: Probability Theory--A Science?

From: W. Wat son (wolf_tracks_at_invalid.inv)
Date: 02/03/05 

Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 17:47:17 GMT

Bjørn-Helge Mevik wrote:

> Einar Andreas Rødland writes:
>
>
>>Probability theory and statistics (the theory at least) are both
>>branches of mathematics.
>
>
> No. Statistics is a `heavy' user of mathematics, but it is not a branch
> of mathematics. Statistics is founded on extra-mathematical concepts like
> `probability', and uses mathematical models to describe these concepts
> (e.g. measure theory to describe probability).
>
> (I know that Einar is a mathematician. I used to be, and at that time
> I also thought of statistics as a branch of mathematics. Now I know
> better. :-)
>
I liken this to something like Field Theory, which was developed by James
Clerk Maxwell, and Michael Faraday. Maxwell provided his four famous
equations that govern the ideas of electrical and magnetic fields. The
mathematics (equations) are widely used in antenna design, optics, and
communications with all the fervor that mathematics can bring (solving
PDEs, Fourier analysis, etc). It has a firm root in mathematics, but it
would be fair to call it a scientific theory or engineering discipline,
since its origins are in observations of magnetism and electric charges.

I can easily see where such topics as rings, groups, number theory, etc.
are not science. That is, they did not depend upon observations about nature. 

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