> There is no proof of special relativity, we believe it because it makes experimentally verified predictions. Right, that's because special relativity is a sc

> There is no proof of special relativity, we believe it because it makes experimentally verified predictions. Right, that's because special relativity is a scientific theory. A scientific theory has two components: a mathematical theory (in which you can perform a priori physically meaningless calculations) and a physical interpretation (which turns the results of such calculations into predictions). However, statistics isn't a scientific theory. It's just math, and like all math, it's about itself and nothing else. It doesn't make sense to “experimentally confirm a mathematical theory”, because, without a physical interpretation, math doesn't make any predictions about the real world. > I think that complicated proofs could easily be placed in appendices and looked at after understanding why the theorem is relevant. Then you're looking for books on applications. That's fine. But a book whose subject matter is a mathematical theory (it even has “foundations” in the title!) can't relegate proofs to appendices.