William M. Briggs

Stream: December 12, 2015: The Day Science Died. #COP21

Today's post is at The Stream: "December 12, 2015: The Day Science Died. #COP21". President Hollande of France slid to the microphone, and, with great Gallic aplomb, announced December 12th,…

Philosophy SAMT

Summary Against Modern Thought: On God’s Happiness

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 finish…

Book review Culture

The Theology of Science-fiction: Some SF “Gospels”—guest post by Bob Kurland

Be sure to visit Bob's main site, Reflections of a Catholic Scientist. Note: this article originally during Lent, 2015. ...when I was not prey to the temptations of this world,…

Culture Statistics

FiveThirtyEight Weighs In With Some Odd Affirmative Action Statistics

FiveThirtyEight ran the piece "Here's What Happens When You Ban Affirmative Action In College Admissions" that ran some dicey stats. Affirmative Action is, as all know, the practice of rewarding…

Culture Philosophy

I Self-Identify As The Yak King

Person I know was attending recently a mandatory training session at a well known university. Session was led by trainers not themselves employees of the university, folks who self-identified as…

Culture Statistics

Odds That a Panel Would ‘Randomly’ Be All Men?

There are no such thing as the "odds" a panel would be "randomly" all men. Yet The Atlantic thinks there could be, and so does a fellow named Greg Martin,…

Culture

Stream: Climate Circus, Climate Clowns at #COP21

Update Tell me: are we getting sick of discussing this topic, or what? It seems that, as is sane and rational, most of us would rather move on to something…

Culture

Memo to GOP Presidential Hopefuls (Who Aren’t Named Trump). Guest Post by The BB

Mr Editor says: note the name of the author. Dear GOP Presidential Hopeful, You are probably wondering why your campaign isn't turning out as well as you expected. Up to…

tfc on Class 88: The Most Neglected Concept: SkillMay 1, 2026
Wow. Americans say the Soviet Union was a huge success.
John Pate on The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising AnswerApril 30, 2026
I would press the red button because it's the red button. The bigger the red button the harder you hit…
Polybius II on The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising AnswerApril 29, 2026
"their Other Lives’ Value premise is something vague about man, but not men" I am reminded of a british comedian…
Johnno on The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising AnswerApril 29, 2026
But do we get time to explain to everyone and have them all sit down and have a discussion before…
gareth on Class 87: Calibration & Conformal Prediction: ExamplesApril 29, 2026
Timestamp 21:35: A "correction" from 0.8 to 1.0 is a "correction factor" of 1.25, not 0.2 (akshully wot you mean…

William M. Briggs

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

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)?