William M. Briggs

Stream: California Tried To Make Global Warming Skepticism Illegal

Today's post is at The Stream: California To Make Global Warming Skepticism Illegal. "All right, Briggsy. We know you're in there! Throw out your notes on improved cloud parameterizations in…

Philosophy SAMT

Summary Against Modern Thought: Arguments Against The World Being Eternal

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. We had…

Culture

Rampant Harassment by Atheists Expected At Reason Rally 2016

The Angry Atheists are meeting today, this time in DC, and evidently they're expecting an uppity crowd, because their Code of Conduct for Reason Rally warns of a host of…

Culture Philosophy

Animals Aren’t Men, Even If Government Says So

I once saw, with mine own eyes, a squirrel steal an acorn from a second squirrel. This shouldn't be surprising; squirrels are career criminals and everybody knows it. Think of…

Philosophy Statistics

The Bayesian Metaphor Can Do More Harm Than Good: Update

Quoting from a post on vampires, "In Bayesian inference, you start with some initial beliefs (called 'Bayesian priors' or just 'priors'), and then you 'update' them as you receive new…

Podcast

Multiverses, Infinities, Probability & The Deadly Sin of Reification — WMBriggs Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZffCuj9ZHA Download MP3 June is Probability Month here at WMBriggs.com, mostly because I'll be teaching (I'll be in Ithaca the 12th to 24th) and want to keep from being distracted…

Philosophy

Stream: Pretend to Believe In Free Will Or Else You Will Make Bad Choices

Today's post is at The Stream: Pretend to Believe In Free Will Or Else You Will Make Bad Choices. I want to be nice about this, but believing that we…

Culture

Church of Scotland Goes For Gmarriage (Government-Defined Marriage)

https://twitter.com/churchscotland/status/733980861905928194 Notice that they couldn't resist that horrid, unnecessary bar graph. The Kirk caved. Dateline Glasgow: "Church of Scotland votes to allow ministers to be in same-sex marriages". The Church…

Darin Johnson on Class 70: Most Claims Of “Controlled For” Are Wrong: The Right WayNovember 9, 2025
Thank you for your answer, Professor. So the prediction interval is useful for predicting the number of failures among the…
Briggs on Class 70: Most Claims Of “Controlled For” Are Wrong: The Right WayNovember 8, 2025
Darin, There is no interval around a probability (with esoteric exceptions not of interest to us). All your evidence is…
Darin Johnson on Class 70: Most Claims Of “Controlled For” Are Wrong: The Right WayNovember 8, 2025
I'm struggling to extrapolate this to the case when the thing I'm estimating is a probability. Let's say I observe…
hudbwu on Changes Are Coming: Our Return to 1970sNovember 7, 2025
I didn't come here for ~two months. Then I come back and ... *shit's gotten weird, son.* o.O At least…
Northbrae on Diversity Patrol Scanning Citations For VictimsNovember 7, 2025
Cheers from Florida, land of the ugly beasts known as womanatees. Meritocracy is now Ancient Herstory. Sheesh.

William M. Briggs

Class 71: Never Trust ‘Research Shows’ Headlines: We Bring Cause To Data

Diversity Patrol Scanning Citations For Victims

Little Nate’s Plan To Save The World

Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education Causes Mass Squealing

Stay The Course: Have Some Class

Last Call For Alcohol-Cancer Papers

UFO Hits United Flight. All Survive. This Time!

Changes Are Coming: Our Return to 1970s

Class 70: Most Claims Of “Controlled For” Are Wrong: The Right Way

The Triumph Of The Feminine

At What Point Does Transsexualism Become A Conservative Value?

The Superpower You Didn’t Know You Had

Class 69: Why Parameters Don’t Exist

Putin, Xi Who Must Obeyed, Occult Rituals & Living Forever

Nobody Believes Anything Based On “No Evidence”

Good Vs Bad Science (Models) & How You Can Tell The Difference: Think Twice Science

Class 68: The Philosophy Of Models (Regression): The WRONG Way

The Lancet’s New Push To Ban Meat

‘Termination Shock’: Newest Entry In Science Doom Naming Contest

Changing Clocks In Fall Will Stroke You Out, Fatty: Research

Class 67: The Philosophy Of Models (Regression): The Right Way