William M. Briggs

Stream: Won’t Somebody Please Rescue The Poor Tradinistas Slaving Away As Baristas?

Today's post is at the Stream Won't Somebody Please Rescue The Poor Tradinistas Slaving Away As Baristas? My article is part of a series at Stream on the attempted return…

Statistics

On The Cubs’ & Trump’s Victories, Nate Silver’s Predictions & All That

https://twitter.com/ThaRightStuff/status/794045050753794048 Some crow is presumably being eaten by Nate Silver and the folks at FiveThirtyEight.com this fine morning. I recommend they bake it into a pie (which I learnt from…

Culture

No Matter Who Wins, We’re Doomed — WMBriggs Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7T0XUOVS2g Download MP3. Note: This was written and recorded last Wednesday, before DickiLeaks et alia, but due to other events I had to delay posting it until today. The return…

Culture

What Russia Wants, Part II — Guest Post by Ianto Watt

Editor's note: This is Part Final of a two-part series. Read Part I. So let me ask you; What is the biggest mountain in Russia? Mt. Athos, of course. Wait.…

Book review Statistics

A Deep Philosophical Account Of Probability

Another review of Uncertainty: The Soul of Modeling, Probability & Statistics, this one taken from an Amazon customer. It was 7 or 8 years ago when I was sitting in…

Culture Statistics

Media Lying With Polls? Is The Pope…Er…Ah, Never Mind

Today's post is at The Stream: Be Skeptical of the Polls: Is the media lying to boost Hillary? Note: I'm putting the Summary Against Modern Thought Sunday series on hiatus…

Philosophy Statistics

Why Is It Okay To Eat Pigs And Not Dogs? Science Does Not Have The Answer

Opening sentence of the abstract in the peer-reviewed paper "When Meat Gets Personal, Animals' Minds Matter Less: Motivated Use of Intelligence Information in Judgments of Moral Standing" in Social Psychological…

Statistics

One World Without Borders Would Lead To Tyranny

Hillary, in her own words, said "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders". She said it, but it's not clear if she believes it.…

NLR on Richard Dawkins, The Big Muscles Fallacy & AI PachinkoMay 7, 2026
It appears that Dawkins does not have a well thought out philosophy of consciousness and so he has psyched himself…
jgh on The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising AnswerMay 7, 2026
There's an episode of Golden Balls where one contentant understood how The Prisoners' Dilemma worked and succcessfully tricked his opponent…
Johnno on How Experts Use “Calamities” to Find Official Victims & Gain PowerMay 6, 2026
Hence we descriptively say in plural... a "calamity of victims." Or a "catastrophe of Expurts." Or an "academy of failures."…
Brian (bulaoren) on How Experts Use “Calamities” to Find Official Victims & Gain PowerMay 6, 2026
So, three circumlocutors walk into a bar...
Cary D Cotterman on How Experts Use “Calamities” to Find Official Victims & Gain PowerMay 6, 2026
When an academic paper has "intersectional," "decolonial," "disabilities," "intersect," "social," "structural," "injustices," and "diverse" in one sentence, you know you've…

William M. Briggs

How Experts Use “Calamities” to Find Official Victims & Gain Power

Richard Dawkins, The Big Muscles Fallacy & AI Pachinko

Class 88: The Most Neglected Concept: Skill

The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising Answer

UFO Reports About To Blast Off!

Class 87: Calibration & Conformal Prediction: Examples

Noticing Differences Between Races Does Not Pay

What Are The Chances Of All These Scientists Dying, Killed, Or Going Missing?

Class 86: Calibration & Conformal Prediction: Theory

How A Miracle Turns Mundane

Contest Winner Announced!

Trump’s Last Stand: Mea Culpa, Redux — Guest Post by Ianto Watt

Class 85: Proper Scores of Model Goodness

Proof!

Justice Ketanji Roars

Iran Has Caught Covid: A Reason For The War

Class 84: Most Important Measure of Model Goodness

There Is No Solution To Crashing Fertility: Good Times Made Soft Men

Did The Pope Really Say Health Is A “Right”?

All Models Only Say What They Are Told To Say, And AI Is A Model

It’s The End Of The World Again