History: Part 1

Question 1
The study on statistics and probability began sometime around the 16th century. Particularly,
games of chance marked the start of probabilistic notions. Although these began in primitive times, the
study behind them emerged fairly recently. Both the Church and the Government detested and banned
these games as they wanted their people to train for wartime.
Probability was not associated to these wagers and although the term existed, its implications
were diverse from today. It referred to beliefs acquired by logical argumentation. Later on prior to the
1900s, it developed two contrasting meanings; a frequentist and an epistemic one. The former refers
to inclination instigated by some law of nature, while the latter suggests an epistemic analysis of
propositions.
Unfortunately, mathematical theory on probability took long to appear due to various economic
and cultural motives. In fact annuities and commerce helped push its development further.
Probability was formed when medieval academics were looking for general truths about causes,
demanding logical reasoning for arguments on true knowledge. This was opposed by empirics such as
Paracelsus, who held that knowledge was not obtained by meditating the Bible, but rather through
ones study of nature itself. The investigation of frequencies of events and forecasting future
occurrences came into being. Hobbes described this approach as never full certainty but frequently
true. Uncertainty led to disagreements between the interpretations of the Scripture and those of
Preachers. This argument between Jansenists who believed that the Scripture provided true knowledge,
and Jesuits, who put social and moral expediency at the top, was known as Probabilism.
The definition of probability changed to worthy of approbation. Those in High Science who
abstained from studying material things, considered themselves to be more progressive than those in
the Low-sciences. Probability, came late into perspective owing to misunderstandings on evidence by
induction, which was nonexistent at the time. This type of evidence was not direct, but rather indirect,
such as soot or ashes imply that there previously was a fire. Port Royals Logic coined this idea as
Internal evidence. Low sciences contributed greatly to this argument while the high sciences
abandoned their philosophies, taking up those developed by the low ones. This was when induction
came into existence.
The mid-17th century marks the emergence of probability. Blaise Pascal was also known as the
father of probability and his correspondence with Fermat marked the beginning of the subject. He was
mainly responsible for decision theory and contribution towards a new recognition of probability.