William M. Briggs

You may have heard of the depressing contretemps at Cornell of late (written in the lady's (a hotelie) own words here, but I cannot recommended reading it). It is not…

The simple answer to today's titular question is no, Bayesianism cannot quantify true belief. This answer will disappoint the Effective Altruists, Rationalists, many professional statisticians, a score of others, and…

Here, in one place, a compilation of anti-hysteria AI articles, well designed to soothes souls, provide calm, and gain insight, all by proving computer models will never come alive, never…

I received this very thoughtful criticism on a Class video at YouTube, which I take to be most kind, and found it important enough to answer here. I love these…

Academic philosophers Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva have written a peer-reviewed paper in which they say that killing newborns is A-OK, and even in some cases to be encouraged. Their “After-birth abortion:…

Isaac Asimov in The Naked Sun, one of his many robot-mystery books, wrote that the minds of his positronic-brained robots (unlike our forever-dumb switch-brained computers) were “Logical but not reasonable.”…

Reminder: The Thursday Class is only for those interested in studying uncertainty. I don’t expect all want to read these posts. Pease don’t feel like you must. Yet, I have…

Before us today is an excellent example of the Appeal To Non-Authority Fallacy, as described below and, more fully, in the upcoming second edition of Everything You Believe Is Wrong.…