Take the 2-minute tour ×  Suggested here: What are the
justifying foundations of statistical mechanics without
appealing to the ergodic hypothesis?  I was wondering about good
critiques of Jaynes' approach to statistical mechanics. @Yvan
did a good job in pointing out a couple of them, but I would
like to have them fleshed out a bit, especially by someone who
is not biased towards Jaynes.  As I think Jaynes' thoughts on
this matter shifted a bit through the years, let me summarise
what I think his position is:  Logically, one must start with
two things:    1. There is a microscopic theory of the
phenomenon under consideration --- for the moment that can be
the existence of a (quantum or classical) hamiltonian
formulation, which then ensures the existence of a preferred
Louiville form. Thus it makes sense to discuss probabilities of
trajectories (ensemble), independently of where those
probabilities come from.    2. There exists a viable
macroscopic, coarse-grained description, which is only the case
if an exp