Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
What Regression Really Is: Part II
Read Part I Let's continue our example. Suppose our regression shows that the probability of a Hate score greater than 5 is 60% for men and 80% for women---for people…
Posted inBook review Philosophy Statistics
An Introduction To Uncertainty: Probability, Statistics, and Modeling of All Kinds
This is a teaser, the first part of a 3,200-word narrative outline for the book that I've started to shop around. The current title is in the headline. Regular readers…
Posted inStatistics
Paper Claims Surprisingly Strong Link Between Climate Change And Violence. Nonsense.
When does more crime happen, in winter or summer? Why? Too easy. How about this one: according to the FBI, what was the violent crime rate over time? No need…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Improper Language About Priors
Suppose you decided (almost surely by some ad hoc rule) that the uncertainty in some thing (call it y) is best quantified by a normal distribution with central parameter θ…
Posted inStatistics
Class Report: How Not To Teach Statistics
It's over. Two solid weeks of 9 to 5 to 9 and beyond statistics. Plus a few cocktails and cookouts and camaraderie. I'm exhausted. The students are mostly later early…
Posted inStatistics
The Cult Of The Parameter!
Carla Antonaccio has written, "The term cult identifies a pattern of ritual behavior in connection with specific objects, within a framework of spatial and temporal coordinates. Rituals would include (but…
Posted inStatistics
On The Kaya Identity
A reader asked about my take on the Kaya wars that are flaming at Anthony Watts's place. Here is the form of the Kaya Identity, which is to say, the…
Posted inStatistics
That Conservatives Smell Different Than Progressives Study Stinks
Several readers asked me to examine the peer-reviewed study "Assortative Mating on Ideology Could Operate Through Olfactory Cues" by Rose McDermott, Dustin Tingley, and Peter K. Hatemi appearing in the…
