Casanova’s Lottery

In the book review, column editor Christian Robert reviews three books: Casanova’s Lottery by Stephen Stigler, Bayes Factors for Forensic Decision Analyses with R, and Bayesian Probability for Babies by Chris Ferrie and Dr. Sarah Kaiser. Casanova’s Lottery tells the “history of a revolutionary game of chance.” Bayes Factors for Forensic Decision Analyses with R provides a sort of blueprint for using Bayes factors in forensics for both investigative and evaluative purposes, including R code and free access to the whole material. The final book tells story follows two young girls competing for dinosaur expertise and being rewarded by cookies, in proportion to the probability of providing the correct answer to two dinosaur questions.