William M. Briggs

We want Pr(Y|X) where Y is a question about the world and X all/everything/in toto of what we assume is probative. That's not what we get usually. But we should!…

Here's the propaganda headline: "Climate change is making it harder for us to sleep: Study". Which cannot be believed. Yet if they would have said "Climate change research making it…

I searched as diligently as I could, which of course means there might be somebody who could search better, but I found no evidence professional golfers develop Parkinson's Diseases (PD)…

I picked a lousy (slow, pre-Fourth) day to post a criticism of "IQ" last week, and badly titled it "Test Your IQ With These Puzzles! (Not So Easy!)". Something like…

I was driving north up through the middle of the state, a hundred mile stretch of not much, trying to find the Tigers on the radio. Not only could I…

Let's suppose a group of men formed a brotherhood. Suppose this group is exclusive and entirely extra-governmental, a group with no or only tacit official support. Suppose the men fund…

Here in this Fun Fourth run up are some puzzles to tease out your "IQ". Only those with high "IQ"s will get them, so beware! Try them all first before…

Since this is typically the slowest week of the year---even Christmas is busier---this is a good time to introduce something strange. About twenty years ago I wrote a skeptical (do…