New Books in Science Andrew H. Jaffe, "The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos" (Yale UP, 2025)
Nov 25, 2025
Andrew H. Jaffe, a cosmologist and director of the Imperial Center for Inference and Cosmology, dives into how models and probability shape our understanding of the universe. He discusses the evolution of astronomical models from Copernicus to Newton and the role of probability in scientific inference. Jaffe also compares Bayesian and frequentist approaches, linking them to quantum mechanics and entropy. His insights reveal that far from being fixed, knowledge is about adapting our models to new data, merging philosophy with cutting-edge science.
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A Title Born In An Uber Call
- Andrew Jaffe says his book title, The Random Universe, came to him in a friend's phone call during an Uber ride.
- The title instantly revealed the book's structure and scope to him back in 2013.
Models Come Before Raw Data
- We always interpret observations through models, so data alone cannot produce understanding.
- Andrew Jaffe argues science needs models first to make sense of observations and guide inference.
Induction Needs Naturalism
- Induction underpins most science but cannot be logically proven from finite data alone.
- Jaffe says we adopt naturalism — the world is intelligible — to make induction workable in practice.