Philosophy – Page 101 – William M. Briggs

Pascal & Barzun On Scientism

Blaise Pascal was a man smarter than I and smarter than thou. He was a scientist, mathematician, probabilist, and was deeply, deeply Catholic. Pascal as scientist warned against trusting science…

Philosophy Statistics

Logical Probability Data Analysis, Measurement Error Example

Read the introduction to this first. If you don't, you will be lost, lost, lost. Logical probability answer to B The answer to B follows from A. The picture is…

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What Do Means Mean?

Update In order that it does not get lost over the weekend, part two of this post will run on Sunday. This is part one of a two part post,…

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The Alternative To P-Values

I apologize for the abruptness of the notation. It will be understandable only to a few. I don't like to use it without sufficient background because the risk of reification…

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Everything Wrong With P-Values Under One Roof

Update 8 January 2019. This post has been superseded! There is an official paper of this material, greatly expanded and vetted. SEE THIS NEW POST. THE NEW PAPER: Here is…

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On The Evidence From Experiments: Part IV

Read Part I, II, III. We are nearly at the point where we can say something about the candidate proposition of interest: "Treatment cures cancer of the albondigas." It is…

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On The Evidence From Experiments: Part III

Read Part I, Part II first. All other propositions are contingent. For example, it is not necessarily true that your treatment should be a cure for cancer of the albondigas…

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On The Evidence From Experiments: Part II

Read Part I first. Outcome 3. This sound like good news for you, since all treatment Bobs got better and no placebo Bobs did. Congratulations! The treatment might have caused…

C. P. Benischek on Reader Opinion Requested: What Science Do You Find Sketchy, Exaggerated Or Wrong?July 15, 2025
Evolution. As Stephen Jay Gould once sort of said, the lack of a single example in the fossil record of…
John Pate on The Unseen Bias In All ScienceJuly 15, 2025
Sigh. Just read a lot more from the London School. The first thing you have to decide, before you even…
Anonymous on Reader Opinion Requested: What Science Do You Find Sketchy, Exaggerated Or Wrong?July 15, 2025
Anything to do with extraterrestrial aliens, aka God, visiting and messing with humans using their superior technology. Plenty of humans…
C-Marie on Reader Opinion Requested: What Science Do You Find Sketchy, Exaggerated Or Wrong?July 15, 2025
I do not have a clue, but I am sooo impressed with so many replies and amazing understanding! God bless,…
polybius on Reader Opinion Requested: What Science Do You Find Sketchy, Exaggerated Or Wrong?July 14, 2025
Artificial "intlligence". These "AI" entities are machines. Software running on an electronic computer. They can never be intelligent, nor can…