Statistics – Page 187 – William M. Briggs

Correlation Implies Causation

A version of this post originally appeared on 20 October 2012. But after a Twitter conversation with our friend @Neuro_Skeptic, it's time for an addition. Comes a Salon article entitled…

Culture Statistics

Sexual Immorality, Low Birth Rates, And Religion

Pew Research released a survey on the Global Views on Morality, asking adults in each of several countries whether the following activities were morally unacceptable: Extramarital Affairs, Homosexuality, Abortion, Premarital…

Philosophy Statistics

Preface: The Philosophy of Probability and Statistics, An Introduction

%This is the Preface of The Philosophy of Probability and Statistics, An Introduction coming before Preface and before the chapters on Truth and Logic. Note the New & Improved title!…

Philosophy Statistics

Is God’s Existence Confirmed By Prophecy Via Probability?

I came across a curious book by Marvin Bittinger, a mathematics educator, called The Faith Equation: One Mathematician's Journey in Christianity. I'm a sucker for books like this, which seek…

Statistics

On UFOs, Salt Intake, And Heart Disease

Michael "State of Fear" Crichton once proposed that UFOs were responsible for global warming. Why not? After all, something caused that record amount of snow in Detroit yesterday. Don't get…

Culture Statistics

Government Per Capita Spending: Up, Up, And Away! Or, Happy Tax Day!

Here it is, folks. Right from WhiteHouse.gov. The amount of Federal Government spending per capita from 1901 to the present and projected out to 2019. Population projections were taken from…

Philosophy Statistics

The Hot Hand: Statistical Fluke Or Genuine Article?

I'll save you hunting through the text. It's a real thing. If you want to know why, read on. If not, you just tell 'em W.M. Briggs sez so, which…

Statistics

Truth: Logic of Probability and Statistics

Here, as promised, is rough, incomplete, outline-only, not-yet-finished, gist-only version of Chapter 1, Truth, for the book tentatively titled The Philosophy of Probability and Statistics (I'm also toying with The…

Maypo on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
Wow, (re)reading a TOFian essay makes it so blasted plain how much I miss the man. May he rest in…
hudbwu on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
> If I were God, and loved rational creatures, I would make myriad rational species; He should come back in…
NLR on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
What gets me about these kind of arguments is that they presuppose too much. People will have extensive debates about…
Briggs on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
Cary, You have read incompletely. God is a necessary being, else there could be no world. That is the classical…
Cary Cotterman on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
"I, a man of 10,000, 5,000, or 2,000 years ago, cannot see how the world functions, therefore I posit (invent)…