Benjamin Peirce and the Howland Will
本文回顾了美国法律史上最早使用概率统计证据的豪兰遗嘱案，分析本杰明·皮尔斯如何用二项模型和图形拟合检验论证签名系伪造，并批判其模型及“乘积规则”的滥用。
Abstract The Howland will case is possibly the earliest instance in American law of the use of probabilistic and statistical evidence. Identifying 30 downstrokes in the signature of Sylvia Ann Howland, Benjamin Peirce attempted to show that a contested signature on a will had been traced from another and genuine signature. He argued that their agreement in all 30 downstrokes was improbable in the extreme under a binomial model. Peirce supported his model by providing a graphical test of goodness of fit. We give a critique of Peirce's model and discuss the use and abuse of the "product rule" for multiplying probabilities of independent events. Key Words: Charles S. Peirce19th-century mathematical statisticsLaw and statisticsHandwriting analysisIndependenceProduct rule