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6. GRAVITATIONAL LENS STATISTICS

It is the opinion of the author that the statistics of lenses as a method for determining the cosmological model has largely ceased to be interesting. However, it is important to understand the underlying physics because it determines the types of lenses we detect. While most recent analyses have found cosmological results consistent with the concordance model (Chae et al. [2002], Chae [2003], Davis, Huterer & Krauss [2003], Mitchell et al. [2004]) there are still large statistical uncertainties and some dangerous systematic assumptions. More importantly, there is little prospect at present of lens statistics becoming competitive with other methods. Gravitational lenses statistics arguably begins with Press & Gunn ([1973]), although the "modern" era begins with the introduction of magnification bias (Turner [1980]), the basic statistics of normal galaxy lenses (Turner, Ostriker & Gott [1984]), cross sections and optical depths for more general lenses (Blandford & Kochanek [1987a], Kochanek & Blandford [1987]), explorations of the effects of general cosmologies (Fukugita et al. [1990], Fukugita & Turner [1991]) and lens structure (Maoz & Rix [1993], Kochanek [1996a]) and the development of the general methodology of interpreting observations (Kochanek [1993b], [1996a]).