Last week of teaching! Randomness is not a cause. Neither is chance. It is always a mistake to say things like “explainable by chance”, “random change”, “the differences are random”, “unlikely to […]
Randomness And The “Null” Hypothesis
On Being Certain There’s No Certainty
Neurologist Robert Burton describes this “delusion of certainty” in his book On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not: “Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice […]
Why Falsifiability, Though Flawed, Is Alluring: Part I
A theory is said not to be scientific unless it is falsifiable. This is an understandable definition, but as something philosophically useful it fails because most theories scientists hold are not falsifiable. […]
Why Falsifiability, Though Flawed, Is Alluring: Part II Climate Model Example
Three-card Monte Pseudo FalsificationRead Part I Take the various theories of the doom which await us when global warming finally strikes. Like Sharknadoes. Or, better, take the theory of global warming itself; […]
To Coyne A Review: Did Jerry Coyne Really Read David Bentley Hart’s Book?
It took Jerry Coyne a while, but it appears—or rather, I should say there is weak and not overly convincing evidence—that the man has finally read David Bentley Hart’s The Experience of […]
Teaching Journal: Day 9—Hypothesis Testing: Part II
A review. We have sales data from two campaigns, A and B, data in which we choose (as a premise) to quantify our uncertainty with normal distributions. We assume the “null” hypothesis […]
What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody’s Cognitive Toolkit? Edge
Long-time reader Randy Brich reminds us all to head over to Edge.org and read the responses to the 2011 World Question given in the title. It will be worth your time to […]
Model Selection and the Difficulty of Falsifying Probability Models: Part I
These next posts are in the way of being notes to myself. Logic is the study of the relation between statements. For example, if “All green men are irascible, and Bob is […]
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