William M. Briggs

Stream: President Obama Once Again Imagines He Will Save The World

Today's post is at The Stream: President Obama Once Again Imagines He Will Saves The World. On his inauguration---perhaps apotheosis is a better word---President Obama said that the world would…

Philosophy Statistics

Summary Against Modern Thought: Intellectual Substances Are Immaterial

See the first post in this series for an explanation and guide of our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles. All posts are under the category SAMT. Previous post. Some mop-up…

Culture

Internet Guidelines From The Rule Of St Benedict — Guest Post by Bob Kurland

The prophet shows that, for the sake of silence, we are to abstain even from good talk. If this be so, how much more needful is it that we refrain…

Culture

Carbon Fibre Masculinity, Homosociality, Gendered Surfaces, & Idiot Academics

Tell you right up front that the only way to be sure of solving the crisis in higher education is to nuke universities from orbit and then salt the grounds…

Culture

Why Americans Left Christianity And Became Nones

The title of the Pew report which we'll discuss is "Why America's 'nones' left religion behind", though, as you can see, I modified it. For good reason. The original Pew…

Statistics

Gonorrhea, Wee P-values, and Tax Increases

Adventurous reader Ted Poppke discovered a peer-reviewed paper that, according to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), proved that increasing sales tax on booze "caused a 24% decrease in gonorrhea cases…

Statistics

On The Severe (And Unrecognized) Limitations Of fMRI

So this 44-year-old Frenchman---let's call him Jacques---presented for a "mild left leg weakness". The leg bone being connected to the hip bone, etc., it was eventually discovered that Jacques's "skull…

Book review Statistics

Uncertainty Reviewed In The New Criterion

"William Briggs, the civilized world's most amusing statistician." Roger Kimball, author of The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia, The Rape of the Masters: How…

Lucy Tucker on It’s The End Of The World AgainMarch 24, 2026
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Cary D Cotterman on It’s The End Of The World AgainMarch 24, 2026
I have encountered people who believe the lines of water vapor created by hot jet engines passing through cold air…
Cary D Cotterman on It’s The End Of The World AgainMarch 24, 2026
Nothing in the "Beliefs Scale" about the Sun and Earth just petering out naturally over billions of years, as is…
Brian (bulaoren) on It’s The End Of The World AgainMarch 24, 2026
Well, at least it isn't cancer!
spetzer86 on It’s The End Of The World AgainMarch 24, 2026
"Oh Lord, bless this thy hand grenade that it might blow thine enemies into tiny bits by thy mercy"

William M. Briggs

It’s The End Of The World Again

Belgian Judge Wants To Arrest Little Nate Cofnast Because Cofnast Says Smart People Are Smarter Than Dumb People

Class 83: Why Were Paul Ehrlich’s Predictions So Good (and so Bad)?

The Great Effeminization of the Academy

The Only Metric That Matters: Or, Pinker’s Folly

Lancet Discovers Public Health Is Politics

Class 82: Be More Uncertain (About Models)

On Not Reading

The Great Smoothing: Another Reason Not To Fear (or trust) AI

A Synchronicity Or Coincidence? What Is Behind Curious Events?

Class 81: The Second Biggest Error In Time Series

The Paper Test Shows Why AGI Is Not Possible: And Why The Brain Is Different In Kind

Researcher Imagines Weather With No Human Influence: Concludes Climate Change Hurts Incomes

Faith Deposited: Why Godless Science Fails

Class 80: Granger Causality; Per Se & Accidental Time Series; Stationarity

Scientists Seeking To Escape Criticism Run To The Warmth & Comfort Of Bluesky

The Loss of Ephemera — Guest Post by The Blonde Bombshell

Class 79: Time Series Example

The Importance Of Not Making Decisions

Don’t Take The ‘Long-Covid’ Alzheimer’s Study Seriously

AI Is Driving Many Crazy: Our Latest Panic

It’s The End Of The World Again

Belgian Judge Wants To Arrest Little Nate Cofnast Because Cofnast Says Smart People Are Smarter Than Dumb People

Stream: President Obama Once Again Imagines He Will Save The World

Summary Against Modern Thought: Intellectual Substances Are Immaterial

Internet Guidelines From The Rule Of St Benedict — Guest Post by Bob Kurland

Carbon Fibre Masculinity, Homosociality, Gendered Surfaces, & Idiot Academics

Why Americans Left Christianity And Became Nones

Gonorrhea, Wee P-values, and Tax Increases

On The Severe (And Unrecognized) Limitations Of fMRI

Uncertainty Reviewed In The New Criterion

There Is No Culture Without Inequality: Stove 1

Impose Your Beliefs Before They Impose Theirs

Telekinesis: Ideas In Our Reenchantment & Rectification

The Physics Of Blessings: Ideas In Our Reenchantment & Rectification