Bayes’ theorem is more than 250 years old, but only recently got widespread use in different and various disciplines. This development stems from different roots and this article provides a synthetic overview of key developments, its principal actors, and the basis of the philosophical and statistical conundrum behind it, which is unexpectedly rooted in warfare activities. This synthesis aims to make the readers, and potential users, aware of the practical complexity and drawbacks when using Bayesian methods, nevertheless remaining the only viable solution in complex analytical situations that more often occur in modern research.

​

​

Key words: Bayesian statistics, frequentist methods, history of statistics, prior probability, posterior probability, likelihood, Bayes Factor, inference