Statistics – Page 184 – William M. Briggs

Bad Arguments Against The Death Penalty: Update

Big news is that both lefty and righty Catholic news sources banded together last week to issue an editorial "Capital Punishment Must End". The subject is enormous; there is no…

Culture Statistics

Race Norming At Universities And The Doctrine Of Unintended Consequences

The Los Angeles Times had a story about how hard East Asians have to work to be admitted to college. Problem is these kids are too smart, an attitude which…

Philosophy Statistics

Sampling Variability Is A Screwy, Misleading Concept

https://twitter.com/Bigdatanalysis/status/573739862924353536 Because of travel and jet lag, exacerbated by "springing forward", we continue our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles next week. If you can't read the tweet above, it says…

Statistics

Can Microbes Manipulate Minds? Guest Post by Petro Starokadomskyy

Starokadomskyy is at the Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center. He writes about his work in the area our original post "Decline Of Participation In Religious Rituals With…

Statistics

Der Spiegel Asks About Global-Warming-Causes-Syrian-Civil-War Paper

That peer-reviewed Colin Kelley et al. paper "Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought", which the traddy media is portraying like Wired did---e.g. How…

Statistics

Journal Bans Wee P-values—And Confidence Intervals! Break Out The Champagne!

Well, it banned all p-values, wee or not. And confidence intervals! The journal of Basic and Applied Social Psychology, that is. Specifically, they axed the "null hypothesis significance testing procedure".…

Culture Statistics

Government Witch Hunt Of Scientists Begins: DOJ To Join In? Update! Inhofe Fights Back

Please help publicize this calumny. Agree with me about this. If---and I only say if---the global-warming-of-doom we have been promised is false, then there is nothing for government to do…

Culture Fun Statistics

For The Love Of Models: A Global Warming Allegory

A very odd thing happened in Science. Turns out a famous weatherman has been forecasting highs in the 60s then 70s for New York City all winter long. But the…

Neil Jordan on Class 79: Time Series ExampleFebruary 20, 2026
Does the passage of time cause ice, or does ice cause the passage of time? Mystical statistical court of appeals…
Johnno on The Importance Of Not Making DecisionsFebruary 19, 2026
But Briggs... we pay people to make decisions on our behalf... Government exists, and it MUST do SOMETHING!!! What are…
Johnno on AI Is Driving Many Crazy: Our Latest PanicFebruary 19, 2026
BRIGGS YOU FOOL OF ARTIFICIALITY! Aye Eye exists for one reason and ONE REASON ONLY! To INCREASE Shareholder Value! If…
JH on The Importance Of Not Making DecisionsFebruary 19, 2026
Maybe you mean “knowledge” instead of “belief.” When my daughter was in ninth grade, I asked her about evidence for…
gareth on AI Is Driving Many Crazy: Our Latest PanicFebruary 19, 2026
Yes "AI" is just computer models. Better - in the sense of more competent in tasks than before. This does…