Statistics – Page 128 – William M. Briggs

So-Called Random Numbers And Encryption: Update With Real-World Example

Psst. Hey, buddy. Word to the wise: "GQNZWZURUDPBFWDMEGBYIXGBGZRSVNHWOIQPPSH GXUVMZ". Keep it secret. That odd string of letters and spaces (well, once space) contains an encrypted message. In order to read…

Statistics

Case Study Of How Easy It Is To Go Wrong

We used to talk a lot about the amygdala here: Yet Another Study "Proves" Liberal, Conservative Brain Differences (wee ps, amygdalas), Scientists Suddenly Discover Men Don't Understand Women (wee ps,…

Class Statistics

When Testing Parameters Might Make Sense

This example is derived from ongoing conversations with a colleague, and portions of this post (mathematified) might show up in a paper. The genesis of this example is from Ron…

Statistics

SAT’s Adversity Score New Way To Enforce Racial Quotas

The College Board will soon attach Pity Points to SAT scores. The Pity Points will be used to suggest that those who scored poorly did not in fact score poorly…

Statistics

An Infinity of Null Hypotheses — Another Anti-P-Value Argument

This is extracted from this set of papers, which should be read in full. An ordinary regression model is written mu = beta_0x_1 + ... + beta_0x_p, where mu…

Statistics

Many Atheists Still Believe In Higher Powers—Whatever Those Are

A new report on atheists is of interest. It's "Understanding Unbelief: Atheists and agnostics around the world: Interim findings from 2019 research in Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, the United Kingdom,…

Statistics

Post-Approval Drug Failures: More Reasons To Eliminate P-values & Parameter-Centric Methods

Some comments on the JAMA: Internal Medicine article "An International Perspective on Drugs for Cancer: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times" by Richard Lehman. Drugs increase fast, and…

Statistics

UFOs: Solution Of Fermi Paradox Or One-World Government Wedge? Update

UFOs--in the public imagination, at least---came in four waves. Although there were other incidents well before this time, and in many places, the first big push in the States was…

Dan MacDougald on The Intellectual Capacity Of Women by David StoveJune 25, 2026
Paul Johnson, the great British Historian, in his "History of the American People," the US started down the road to…
Marbles! – William M. Briggs on Marbles!June 24, 2026
[…] I am on the road and am way behind on posts—I have a 3,500 word article on deriving Oughts…
Brian (bulaoren) on Marbles!June 24, 2026
For the past 48 hours, I've been considering a fundamental, structural, problem with marbles; " Marmorism". Some people will accumulate…
John Pate on Marbles!June 23, 2026
Marbles was a thing in my primary school in Cambridge, England in the sixties. I don't recall girls ever playing…
Jess on Marbles!June 23, 2026
Somewhere, I have my brother's bag of marbles. I sometimes think I should go through them to see if there…