Statistics – Page 133 – William M. Briggs

The Great Protest In England Draws To A Close

Have you heard this? Only 1% of people aged 18-24 identify as Church of England, according to the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey for 2018. Even among over-75s, the most…

Class Statistics

Why The Bootstrap Seems To Work—And Why It Produces Over-Certainty

Let's drag the statistician's hoary threadbare ball-filled bag out of the cupboard to make a point. In it are 3 white balls and 2 black. Using the statistical syllogism, we…

Statistics

Paper Says Some Psychiatric Diagnoses “Scientifically Meaningless”

The title is an understatement: Heterogeneity in psychiatric diagnostic classification. This is a paper in Psychiatry Research by Kate Allsopp, John Read, Rhiannon Corcoran, and Peter Kinderman. Abstract (to which…

Statistics

Yes, There Is A Hot Hand In Basketball

On the Second of March in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred Sixty-Two, well before the sport became another venue for pencil-necked political correctness, a basketball player…

Class Statistics

The Doomsday Argument Is Doomed: Flawed Application Of Bayes

The WSJ on 27 June 2019 published an essay by William Poundstone on the hoary Doomsday Argument. Many are fooled by this equation, which contains a fundamental, even glaring, flaw.…

Statistics

The Epidemiologist Fallacy Strikes Again — Pesticides & Autism

Long-time readers will recall the epidemiologist fallacy is a shotgun marriage of the ecological fallacy and wee p-values. Make that and/or confidence intervals. For confidence intervals are equivalent to p-values…

Class Statistics

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,…

aGrimm on Book UpdateOctober 16, 2026
I'm looking forward to the book; warts and all the first was enlightening and fun to read.
John Pate on Book UpdateOctober 14, 2026
I'm a big fan of LaTeX. I wrote a class package that made it into one or more of the…
Ursula on Book UpdateOctober 14, 2026
i have your first edition which I read, pencil in hand foor the typos. Loved it anyway! Will be buying…
Brian (buaoren) on Book UpdateOctober 14, 2026
Hello again, friend Briggs How colloquial is your French? Please allow me to be te first to wish you; Merde!
Cary Cotterman on Book UpdateOctober 14, 2026
I just might buy a copy of the new edition, even though I already have the typo-ridden first one. I'll…