1 Studies in the History of Statistics and Probability ... - Sheynin, Oscar

17. The author had understandably chosen an ideologically safe cause. In 1959Kolmogorov (Sheynin 1998, p. 542) was much more specific. It was necessary, hestated, to express the desired optimal state of affairs in the national economy by asingle indicator. Read: to abandon the Marxian socially necessary labour asindicator of cost and measure cost in monetary units. O. S.18. This is an understandably mild expression. Actually, genetics was uprooted asdecided beforehand by the party’s leadership, many scientists severely persecuted(Vavilov, the world renown scholar, died in prison) and even Kolmogorov’s paper(1940),see below, was considered dangerous. In 1950, Gnedenko (Sheynin 1998, p.545) mildly criticized it (undoubtedly after discussing the matter with him). In 1948,Fisher most strongly condemned Lyssenko (Ibidem, p, 544).For the sake of comprehensiveness I add references to Lyssenko and Kolman, ahigh ranking party apparatchik who at the end of his life did not return from a visit tohis sister in Sweden and then published a book with a telltale title. O. S.19. This is hardly understandable. O. S.20. What does this mean actually? O. S.21. Is this really connected with the placebo effect? O. S.22. No explanation provided. Notation Ф usually meant the distribution functionof the normal law. O. S.23. This is my attempt of translating that expression from Russian. I did not find itin any other language. O. S.24. The author provided a wrong reference. O. S.25. This was a beloved expression of the Soviet press applied in appropriate cases.O. S.26. The initial aim of scholasticism was the study of Aristotelian philosophy butsoon it turned to uniting philosophy and theology. Accordingly, the first universitiesconsisted of three faculties devoted to theology, canon law and medicine so thatscholasticism had indeed been avidly taught there. It was gradually excluded by thedeveloping natural science although its structure proved useful for logic. One of itsteaching was the so-called probabilism, see [i, Note 3].Rabelais, in his immortal Gargantua and Pantagruel, had left a vivid picture ofthe benefits of gaining useful knowledge (rather than repeating Aristotle or ThomasAquinas). There also the problem of a possible marriage is shown to depend oncircumstances. O. S.27. Modern probability appeared in the 1930s when such notions as density hadbegun to be considered as mathematical entities. O. S.28. See [iv, Note 2]. O. S.BibliographyAlimov Ju. I. (1974 Ukrainian), On the application of methods of mathematicalstatistics to treating experimental data. Avtomatika, No. 2, pp. 21 – 33.Bolshev L. N., Smirnov S. V. (1967 Russian), Tablitsy Matematicheskoi Statistiki(Tables of Mathematical Statistics). Moscow, 1968.Borovkov A. A. (1972 Russian), Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung. Eine Einführung.Berlin, 1976.Cournot A. A. (1843), Exposition de la théorie des chances et des probabilités.Paris, 1984.Dieudonne J. (1966), Sovremennoe Razvitie Matematiki (Current Development ofMathematics). Coll. Translations. Place of publ. not provided. Original contributionnot named.Enin T. K. (1939 Russian), The results of an analysis of the assortment of hybridsof tomatoes. Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR, vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 176 – 178. Alsopublished at about the same time in a foreign language in C. r. (Doklady) Acad. Sci.URSS.Ermolaeva N. I. (1939 Russian), Once more about the “pea laws”. Jarovizatsia,No. 2, pp. 79 – 86. Note the scornful term for the Mendelian laws.Gnedenko B. V. (1969 Russian), On Hilbert’s sixth problem. In ProblemyGilberta. Moscow, pp. 116 – 120. German translation of book: Die HilbertschenProbleme. Leipzig, 1971 (Ostwald Klassiker No. 252), see pp. 145 – 150.Gulyga A. V. (1975 Russian), Can science be immoral? Priroda, No. 12, pp. 45 –49.120