William M. Briggs

Ritual Sacrifice Promoted Evolution Of Stratified Societies: A Statistical Fallacy

His Majesty Every human society except one is stratified. The exception is the empire of William I, a small sand island that comes and goes by a remote and isolated…

Philosophy SAMT

Summary Against Modern Thought: God Can Do Everything Not Logically Impossible

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. Last week…

Culture

Norway’s Official Church Surrenders Christianity

They weren't the first Christian sect to surrender and they won't be the last, but the Norwegian church is one of the official state churches to give up on holy…

Culture

Why Do So Many Want Men In Ladies Rooms? Bonus: Did You Know It’s Earth Awareness Day?

Street Pest: Excuse me, sir, do you have a minute to save the earth? Intelligent Man: Huh? Oh. The earth? I'm not sure the earth would benefit from saving. SP:…

Statistics

Stream: Why Science Is Broken & How To Fix It

Today's post is at The Stream: Why Science Is Broken, and How To Fix It: It comes down to bad politics, bad money, and bad philosophy. Here are snippets. Plus:…

Podcast

WMBriggs Podcast 20 Apr 2016 — The End Of All History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiFiqwWt60M Lights Out clip, followed by the approach of Mars by Holst. If, as claimed by humanism, man were born only to be happy, he would not be born to…

Statistics

Scientism Of The First Kind: Science Shows Laptops Distract Students

https://twitter.com/mattstat/status/722028191582445568 Here's the headline. (It's NPR, so don't expect much.) "Attention Students: Put Your Laptops Away". And here's the relevant sad bit: For one thing, research shows that laptops and…

Fun

New & Improved Way To Support Your Favorite Blog!

Uncontrolled gleeful trembling is the most common symptom upon learning the Big News that there is a New & Improved! way to support the blog! You know this method must…

hudbwu on Math Is Epistemic Violence, Says Lady AcademicJune 20, 2026
We they're certainly re-inventing. Promises kept, I guess. Also, I can't escape thinking this is what the mice and rats…
hudbwu on The Ultimate IQ Test: Guessing the Author’s Mind and Escaping the Infinity of AnswersJune 20, 2026
ObvIOusLy, the correct formula for the triangles at the start is (upper_left + upper_right) * upper_left , which gives us…
Andras Kuthi on Truly Random Numbers Found?June 19, 2026
Contemplate that Epstein won the New Mexico lottery...so much for randomly generated numbers.
Rich on Math Is Epistemic Violence, Says Lady AcademicJune 18, 2026
Perhaps she and her friends would accept being paid according to the indigenous mathematics of crows who can, apparently, count…
Cary D Cotterman on Math Is Epistemic Violence, Says Lady AcademicJune 17, 2026
Lunatics like this Kather are well-paid and get great benefits for putting out hooey like that. People pay a lot…

William M. Briggs

Class 92: Simple Optimal Decisions: PSA & Cancer Example

Math Is Epistemic Violence, Says Lady Academic

Truly Random Numbers Found?

Class 91: Try Not To Use the ROC Curve & AUC

Climate Change Increases Risk of Even Slower World Cup Games!

The Ultimate IQ Test: Guessing the Author’s Mind and Escaping the Infinity of Answers

Reader Poll: Shorter or Longer, Frequent or Rarer Posts?

No Model Will Save Us: Pope Leo, the Miserostat, and AI’s Woke Coders

How High an IQ Must A Person Have To Be Executed?

Class 90: Simple (Optimal) Decisions

Shocking Abortion Numbers: Death Distributions Show We’re Living Longer

Blessed Memorial Day; No Class; See You Wednesday

Why There Are (Probably) No UFOs: “Climate Change”

Creating Microbial Monsters To Terrorize Ourselves

Class 89: The Measure Most Modelers Forget: Skill Examples

The Shocking Conclusion of the HR Trilemma!

The HR Trilemma: Which Door Decides Your Fate?

Capital Punishment Deters Crime More Than The Death Penalty

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