Statistics – Page 238 – William M. Briggs

Differences In Brains Between Believers And Atheists?

The following question was posed at the (inaptly named) magazine Scientific American, "Is there a difference between the brain of an atheist and the brain of a religious person?" It…

Philosophy Statistics

Curtis’s The Science Of Subjectivity

An unfocused post today; just some notes on a paper. Busy day for me. Andrew Curtis wrote, "The science of subjectivity" in the January 2012 issue of the journal Geology…

Philosophy Statistics

What’s The Difference Between A Confidence Interval And A Credible Interval? Update

Twitter @ceptional reminded me of this post, which I had forgotten. Since it is highly relevant to The Great Bayesian Switch, I decided to repost. Some minor errors in grammar…

Culture Philosophy Statistics

The Great Bayesian Switch

Update: See this post on the definition of confidence and credible intervals. Submitted for your approval, a new paper. A polemic describing in nascent terms the paradise that awaits us…

Statistics

What A Prediction Is And What It Is Not: Part IV

There is a technical distinction between a scenario and a prediction, though the line is fine and often disputable. Many scenarios are merely intolerably loose, and therefore useless, predictions. The…

Philosophy Statistics

What A Prediction Is And What It Is Not: Part III

This inescapable fact, that the conditioning evidence is only assumed and is therefore subjectively defined, is responsible for much acrimony about accuracy. Thus the reason we attempt to eliminate wiggle…

Philosophy Statistics

What A Prediction Is And What It Is Not: Part II

Thanks to DAV for reminding me of a clarification. See yesterday's comments. This post is mostly bookkeeping. Tomorrow we do more examples. Sometimes, in contracts as in predictions, certain "unexpected…

Philosophy Statistics

What A Prediction Is And What It Is Not: Part I

I say that the Detroit Tigers, the baseball team---baseball being the most sublime of all sports, and this team being the game's most stalwart representative---will beat the Boston Red Sox…

Paul Murphy on The Nuances and Challenges of Federal Funding for Research — Guest Post by An AcademicMay 14, 2025
Wow, what is that the naive outsider's view? In reality: 1 - you don't get tenure unless your name is…
cdquarles on The Nuances and Challenges of Federal Funding for Research — Guest Post by An AcademicMay 14, 2025
It is laughable that the premise that "commercial" funding of research is corrupting, but government funding isn't. What was that…
cdquarles on Eggs and ‘PFAS-Easter’ or Selling Fear on the Day of Resurrection — Guest Post by Jaap HanekampMay 14, 2025
Bingo, SSG Briggs. List for me, in order of mass with the most mass first, all of the chemicals in…
hudbwu on Academics Call Pregnancy A DiseaseMay 13, 2025
A moment of silence for all the pain and suffering Briggs endured to bring us this comedic piece. Trully, greatest…
hudbwu on Eggs and ‘PFAS-Easter’ or Selling Fear on the Day of Resurrection — Guest Post by Jaap HanekampMay 13, 2025
I would have preferred if the dosage for the toxins in rats were expressed in the same units as the…