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Thomas Bayes, known as an English probabilist, mathematician, and minister, was born to his parents Joshua, an ordained Nonconformist minister, and Ann. He was the oldest of six siblings. Historians know little of Thomas Bayes’ life as a child and young adult, but know he received a license for ministry in Edinburgh and assisted his father.

      Other than his ministry, Bayes was credited with writing an anonymous paper supporting Isaac Newton’s work on fluxions, which was attacked by George Berkeley in a paper called The Analyst: Or a Discourse addressed to an Infidel Mathematician.  This work was a major factor that may have helped secure his election to the Royal Society.  The Royal Society felt he had demonstrated a vast understanding and knowledge of geometry, mathematics, and philosophy. 

     After Bayes’ death in 1761, a family friend, Reverend Richard Price, found another mathematical work written by Bayes, which supported Bayes’ understanding of probability.  This work explored the Stirling-De Moivre Theorem, which involves series expansions.  Price and others found his reasoning and proof quite insightful.  In 1764, Bayes’ work was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.  

Additional Link:
MacTutor - Bayes

Activity #2:
See Time-Axis Fallacy and Bayes' Theorem lesson plan

Picture reproduced from MacTutor History of Mathematics archive with permission.