I just read a fascinating paper written by Prof David Mumford (1999) of Brown University, and I wanted to share his predictions about the future of stochastics written at the end of the second millennium:
Stochastic methods will transform pure and applied mathematics in the beginning of the third millennium. Probability and statistics will come to be viewed as the natural tools to use in mathematical as well as scientific modeling. The intellectual world as a whole will come to view logic as a beautiful elegant idealization but to view statistics as the standard way in which we reason and think.In fact, stochastics have come of age as we proceed into the second decade of the 21st century. You can read his entire paper linked below.
Source: Mumford, D (1999, November 18), The Dawning of the Age of Stochasticity, Unpublished paper based on a lecture delivered by the author at a conference entitled, "Mathematics towards the Third Millennium" held at Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei on May 27-29, 1999.
Originally published in The Vantage Point