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John Craig

b. Scotland, second half of seventeenth century
d. 1731, London, England

George Hooper

b. 18 November 1640
d. 6 September 1727



John Craig, a Scottish mathematician, studied mathematics under David Gregory at Edinburgh. Later he moved to Cambridge where he remained for most of his life. He was ordained and became prebendary of Salisbury in 1708. Most of his contributions to mathematics are in the infinitesimal calculus. He is known for one short work, Theologiae Christianae Principia Mathematica, published in 1699.  This concerns the probability of the truth of events based upon testimony of these events. The journal History and Theory has printed as Craig's Rules of Historical Evidence the text and translation of  the first two chapters of the work in Beiheft 4, 1964.

George Hooper was a well-respected member of the clergy in England. All of his writings were published anonymously.  Attributed to him is A Calculation of the Credibility of Human Testimony, Philosophical Transactions, XXI, 1699. This particular work had been attributed to John Craig as well.