I have taken the survey.

I think difference in date of birth (1922 vs ~1960) is less important than difference of date of publication (2003 vs ~2015).

On the Outside View, is criticism 12 years after publication more likely to be valid than criticism levelled immediately? I do not know. On one hand, science generally improves over time. On the other hand, if a particular work get the first criticism after many years, it could mean that the work is of higher quality.

I should clarify that I am referring to the section David Chapman calls: "Historical appendix: Where did the confusion come from?". I read it as a criticism of both Jaynes and his book.

No, I do know what Yudkowsky's argument is. Truth be told, I probably would be able to evaluate the arguments, but I have not considered it important. Should I look into it?

I care about whether "The Outside View" works as a technique for evaluating such controversies.

Yes! From the Outside View, this is exactly what I would expect substantial, well-researched criticism to look like. Appears very scientific, contains plenty of references, is peer-reviewed and published in "Journal of Statistical Physics" and has 29 citations.

Friedman and Shimonys criticism of MAXENT is in stark contrast to David Chapmans criticism of "Probability Theory".

Could you post a link to a criticism similar to David Chapman?

The primary criticism I could find was the errata. From the Outside View, the errata looks like a number of mathematically minded people found it to be worth their time to submit corrections. If they had thought that E. T. Jaynes was hopelessly confused, they would not have submitted corrections of this kind.

I don't think it's a good sign for a book if there isn't anybody to be found that criticizes it.

I think it is a good sign for a Mathematics book that there isn't anybody to be found that criticizes it except people with far inferior credentials.

Thank you for pointing this out. I did not do my background check far enough back in time. This substantially weakens my case.

I am still inclined to be skeptical, and I have found another red flag. As far as I can tell, E. T. Jaynes is generally very highly regarded, and the only person who is critical of his book is David Chapman. This is just from doing a couple of searches on the Internet.

There are many people studying logic and probability. I would expect some of them would find it worthwhile to comment on this topic if they agreed with David Chapman.