A long time ago, an enthusiastic scientist who taught me all chemistry I have since forgotten, said something has stuck in my memory: Boys, remember science can do anything for you, from choosing a horse to choosing a wife! That seems in retrospect a curious choice of endpoints. It reminds me of an old saying, England is heaven for horses and hell for women. Still, ancient dream of using science to understand and even predict human choice ? and above all to help all of us to make good choices ?is now held by many experts to have been realized at last. Bayesian Decision Theory, as it is usually called, is product of nearly four decades of intensive and ingenious work by econo mists, mathematicians and philosophers. It has come to be widely used for policy evaluation in business and government. To cite im portant example: in application to cost-benefit analysis, it is theoretical underpinning of President Reagan's remarkable Executive Order 12291 of 7 February 1981 which re quires all major regulations by federal agen cies to be supported by analysis of social costs and benefits, including those that cannot be quantified, so chosen regulation in volves the least net cost to society. Bayesian Theory has recently been praised by Herbert Simon, himself a distinguished contributor to these researches, as among jewels of intellectual accomplishment in our time. Simon acclaims theory as one of impressive intellectual achievements of first half of twentieth century, and calls it an elegant machine for applying reason to
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