Statistics – Page 207 – William M. Briggs

Frequentists Are Closet Bayesians: Confidence Interval Edition

Actually, all frequentists and Bayesians are logical probabilists, but if I put that in the title, few would believe it. A man might call himself an Anti-Gravitational Theorist, a science…

Statistics

William M. Briggs Sez: Keep That Impressive Middle Initial

You can take it from William M. Briggs, and also from the Today show: sporting a middle initial is a mark of sophistication, intelligence, and rugged manliness---or womanliness, as the…

Statistics

Researchers: Calling Girls Fat Makes Them Fat

Whatever you do, don't call somebody a "researcher". It could condemn them to a nasty, brutish, and short-tempered life. The kind where most of their time is spent scrambling for…

Statistics

Time Series And Causality: Global Warming Example

Temperature causes Here is an atmospheric monthly average temperature series: T = (61, 69, 69, 70, 72, 65, 63) (all F). What caused the temperature to take the value T1…

Statistics

Time Series Aren’t Easy: Tornado Deaths Example

Time series are the most abused statistics in the physical sciences. (It's an endless, raucous, peer-reviewed contest for the worst in the "soft sciences.") The Mann problem (is that a…

Philosophy Statistics

Physical Probability Doesn’t Exist

There have been many attempts to tie probability to physical chance. Here, briefly and for discussion, is why I think all of them fail. Ontology does not recapitulate epistemology Let…

Culture Statistics

A New Possible Solution Of Fermi’s Paradox

What is the probability the following proposition is true? ``There are rational beings other than humans in the universe." Well, given the evidence of angels, who are rational non-human beings,…

Philosophy Statistics

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…

NLR on Math Is Epistemic Violence, Says Lady AcademicJune 17, 2026
The real issue with this is that it is an attempted justification for the studies departments to take over other…
Another “Curate’s Egg?” Comments on Magnifica Humanitas – The American Catholic on Laudato Si: “The Curate’s Egg.” The Not So Excellent Parts. Guest Post by Bob KurlandJune 15, 2026
[…] If ever one wanted an analogy to show that a flawed work had good parts, it would be the…
Truly Random Numbers Found? – William M. Briggs on Quantum Potency & ProbabilityJune 15, 2026
[…] Which leaves open the possibility we might gain at least some knowledge of non-local causes. This article gives one…
Brian (bulaoren) on Truly Random Numbers Found?June 15, 2026
Wait...Does this mean that all those non-winning lottery tickets, I've bought over the years, were drawn from non-randomly-generated numbers? I…
McChuck on Truly Random Numbers Found?June 15, 2026
What QM leaves out of their "randomness is fundamental" picture is the state of the entire rest of the universe.…