Statistics – Page 199 – William M. Briggs

Infinite Surprise And Impossible Events

It's a lazy Saturday, so some musings today on entropy and information and probability. It's about time we started tying these things together. Things like the following are heard: "Given…

Statistics

Uncertainty Is An Impossible Sell

I've never seen the show, but I've heard that the protagonist on the X Files used to have a desk sign which read, "I want to believe." That sentiment characterizes…

Book review Statistics

The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels Reviewed

People first Just in time for the Federally-Recognized-Holiday-Of-25-December-That-Shall-Go-Unnamed we have a suitable gift for science deniers everywhere. Alex Epstein's The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels Science deniers? Yes, sir. Those…

Statistics

Can We Predict The Unpredictable?

The most intriguing thing about the new peer-reviewed paper of the same name as today's post in Nature: Scientific Reports by Abbas Golestani and Robin Gras is that it is…

Statistics

Climate Change Causing Short Peruvians!

Who remembers those crank scientists who wanted to genetically engineer human beings so that they would be sprier and narrower and thus have smaller "carbon footprints"? We don't need 'em!…

Philosophy Statistics

Don’t Use Statistics Unless You Have To

We're finally getting it, as evinced by the responses to the article "Netherlands Temperature Controversy: Or, Yet Again, How Not To Do Time Series." Let's return to the Screaming Willies.…

Statistics

On That New “Gay Gene” Study

First and most important point: there is no way we're going to cover in 750 words the whole of this field. Much will be left out. This small article is…

Statistics

Predicting Doom—Guest Post by Thomas Galli

I am not a statistics wizard; an engineer, I value the predictive power of statistics. Indeed, if one can precisely control variables in the design of an experiment, statistics-based prediction…

Cary Cotterman on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
Every day there's some paper or article claiming that something is good for you, followed the next day by some…
spetzer86 on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
Always fun watching the lectures.
JRob on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
The epidemiologist fallacies are always enjoyable. It seems that there is a rash of scientists now saying that previous scientists…
Tars Tarkas on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
"The unsweetened kids were born late 1951 to 1954, while the sugar-available kids were born after rationing ending in July…
McChuck on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
It's also not coincidental that the control group is, by the standards of the study, entirely younger than the test…