Philosophy – Page 3 – William M. Briggs

Spurious Correlations Proves Hypothesis Testing Should Be Abandoned

This week traditionally is a slow week on the blog, so let me have a go at explaining something I've explained a few hundred times before, a thing which has…

Philosophy Statistics

David Stove Exposes Karl Popper’s Wee P!

We have discussed before (and in detail here) how Fisher, inventor of the wee P of which scientists boast ("Look how small my P is!" shouted the excited scientist), was…

Philosophy Statistics

Why Dembski’s Design Inference (Of Causation) Goes Wrong

Probability does not exist; therefore, nothing has a probability, so nothing can be caused by probability, though the uncertainty of statements can be had conditional on assumptions, and this probability…

Philosophy Statistics

Bertrand’s Paradox — Solved!

Anon sent a question about Bertrand's Paradox. The paradox is supposed to show something has gone wrong with our thinking in probability. And it has, but not in the way…

Philosophy Statistics

Solved: The Best Bayesian Prior To Use In Every Situation

Kevin Gray is back with another question, this time about priors. His last led to the post "Was Fisher Wrong? Whether Or Not Statistical Models Are Needed." (The answer was…

Philosophy Statistics

More Proof Hypothesis Testing Is Wrong & Why The Predictive Method Is The Only Sane Way To Do Statistics

Here it is, friends, the one complete universal simple function, the only function you will ever need to fit any---I said any---dataset x. And all it takes is one---I said…

Philosophy Statistics

Dear Quacks & Experts: Your Loss Function Is Not Our Loss Function

Note to the colleague who wrote me. I lost your email! You asked excellent questions about the post Classical Statistics Has Outlived Its Usefulness: Here’s The Fix, which I meant…

Philosophy Statistics

Why (Scott Alexander’s) Bayesian Rationality Fails

Scott Alexander, late of Slate Star Codex, and New York Times doxee, is the subject of Curtis Yarvin nee Moldbug's latest. Rather, Alexander's (and Moldbug's? see postscript) Bayesian rationality is.…

McChuck on The MRS Degree — Guest Post by Johnathan EdwardsSeptember 17, 2026
"South Korea and Japan will no longer exist, perhaps in our lifetime, if they don’t start reproducing or bringing more…
McChuck on PFAS and Preservatives: Entrenching Chemophobia through Everyday Stuff — Guest Post by Jaap HanekampSeptember 17, 2026
How many of the breast milk lab techs (doesn't that sound filthy out of context?) were wearing latex gloves, known…
JH on PFAS and Preservatives: Entrenching Chemophobia through Everyday Stuff — Guest Post by Jaap HanekampSeptember 16, 2026
The alternative to preserved clay is, sooner rather than later, mouldy clay… Does this mean to create fear? There are…
Cary Cotterman on PFAS and Preservatives: Entrenching Chemophobia through Everyday Stuff — Guest Post by Jaap HanekampSeptember 16, 2026
Growing up in the late 1950s, I played with modeling clay almost every day. Who knows, back then it was…
Phil R on PFAS and Preservatives: Entrenching Chemophobia through Everyday Stuff — Guest Post by Jaap HanekampSeptember 16, 2026
I'm no expert but I think it's a little over the top comparing PFAS with Agent Orange. PFAS, for the…