Statistics – Page 207 – William M. Briggs

What Is And What We Know Of It, Probabilistically Speaking

Ontology is the study of what is and what is not. Epistemology is the study of our knowledge of what is and what is not. Though there are obvious points…

Statistics

Is It Okay To Force A Baker To Sell Cakes In Violation Of His Religious Conscience?

Here's the setup: a Colorado judge has ordered a Christian man and owner of a bakery that he must bake cakes for homosexual civil ceremonies (homosexual "marriage" is illegal in…

Statistics

The Top Five Mistakes In Marketing Statistics

Forgive me the title, won't you? It is my own creation, I admit, but numbered promises are eminently clickable. Plus they are the norm in business writing. Anyway, the real…

Culture Statistics

Scientism, Legalism and Precaution: Regulating Nutrition and Health Claims in Europe

Announcing a new paper, with official title "Scientism, Legalism and Precaution -- Contending with Regulating Nutrition and Health Claims in Europe" in European Food and Feed Law Review by Jaap…

Statistics

Twenty Tips For Interpreting Scientific Claims

Title of today's post is taken from article of the same name in Nature by William Sutherland, David Spiegelhalter, Mark Burgman. Several readers asked me to comment. I'll assume you've…

Culture Philosophy Statistics

Friedrich A. Hayek’s Lecture “The Pretense of Knowledge”

This was reprinted in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. I've chopped it into parts for commenting. To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the…

Philosophy Statistics

What Random Means In Random Number Generation

Thinking about one-time pads reminded me to point this out. It's simple, really. A "random" number generator spits out a string of numbers or characters from some set, say c1,…

Statistics

A Survey Of The Perceptions Of Climate Scientists 2013: No Consensus

Earlier this year scientists were given a survey on their opinion of the state of climate science. This was administered by Dennis Bray & Hans von Storch at the Helmholtz…

Johnno on How Did We Do In Our 2025 Predictions?December 31, 2025
I was right about the right! Conservative estimating does work! Always aim for mediocrity! The formula for success! Or at…
John Pate on Why The Drake Equation FailsDecember 31, 2025
Seems to me the obvious reason for the state of the world as we see it is that aliens are…
Zundfolge on How Did We Do In Our 2025 Predictions?December 31, 2025
Wow, I have never been as far off as I was this last year. I'll have to give some thought…
Chaeremon on Why The Drake Equation FailsDecember 31, 2025
even when figures relate to observations, mathematics can only help with finding errors in equations -- against measured data. so,…
Nate on How Did We Do In Our 2025 Predictions?December 31, 2025
Happy New Year! I seem to have neglected to make a 2025 prediction (it would have likely been wrong anyway).…