This story in the Guardian is an instance of one of those strange journalistic tics: presenting the context of a story in a way consistent with the facts but bordering on the irrelevant.

“The Cambridge company [Autonomy] … developed a product to sort information based on the theories of an 18th century cleric,” writes Mark Tran. All of which is entirely true, but what does the fact that mathematician Thomas Bayes was an 18th century cleric really have to do with a business report about how well a software company is doing?

One might argue that it’s just an interesting fact that a reader could note in passing, and there’s a certain truth to this; if only more business articles were so horizon-broadening! However, if Mr. Tran had really wanted to provide a context for his brief remarks about statistical theory and fourth-quarter results, he could have done better. Much better.

Bayesianism, after all, is not some obscure concept rescued by archaeological software developers. It is an entirely mainstream theoretical tool used in a range of disciplines, from epistemology to spam-filtering. Pretensions to erudition, far from enlightening readers, generally only create misleading impressions. Journalists should remember that having the right balance of facts providing context to an article is just as important as ensuring those facts are correct.