Introduction and Case Studies

One of us (Tong, 1995a) has discussed this issue as follows. To different statisticians, the subject of deterministic chaos might provoke different reactions. Some statisticians might find chaos — the notion totally alien, and even suspicious. They might have heard or overheard one or two claims perpetuated in some popular accounts of deterministic chaos theory, from which they might form the impression that the theory attempts to explain almost all random phenomena by purely deterministic systems. They tend to take their leave at this point because their training has convinced them of the limitations of determinism in analysing real data.