William M. Briggs

NYC Protesters: ‘What Do We Want? Dead Cops!’ What They’ll Get Is Something Else

https://twitter.com/NYCityAlerts/status/543987028166455296 "Comedy" (or perhaps "farce") is a good word to describe the human predicament given events like Sony (the hacked company which revealed emails with lame jokes) studio head and…

Philosophy SAMT

Summary Against Modern Thought: Nothing Is Predicated Univocally Of God & Other Things

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. Perhaps a…

Culture Fun

The Reimaginings Of Exodus And Noah Inspires Moviemakers—And You!

https://twitter.com/mattstat/status/543559693592182785 John Nolte doesn't like Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings. ...Scott makes a fool of himself. DeMille used the ancient biblical tale to tell a universal story about human…

Culture Philosophy Podcast Statistics

Podcast: Peer Review, Bob & Ray Do Statistics, Academic Calls For Killing Of (Post-Birth) Babies

[podcast]https://www.wmbriggs.com/audio/wmbriggs_com_12dec2014_0006.mp3[/podcast] Show Notes Wired's PubPeer article. PubPeer.com itself. PubPeer's discussion of "Macroscopic Observability of Spinorial Sign Changes under 2π Rotations". Bob and Ray can be found at, inter alia, the…

Philosophy

Pascal’s Pensées, A Tour: III

Since our walk through Summa Contra Gentiles is going so well, why not let's do the same with Pascal's sketchbook on what we can now call Thinking Thursdays. We'll use…

Statistics

On The Attribution Of A Single Event To Climate Change

Rained yesterday here in the city of cities. Must be because of climate change, right? Hey. The climate did change and it did rain. What more evidence do you want?…

Culture

Columbia Law School Kiddies ‘Traumatized’, Exams Postponed: Update Harvard Joins

There's a story in John Toland's magisterial The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire (volume two) which depicts a Japanese ship transporting Western prisoners in conditions…

Statistics

The Philosophy Of Rock Paper Scissors

Way my dad and I used to play is that when somebody won they got to grab the hand of the loser and then, with the fore- and middle-fingers only,…

shawn marshall on Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGIFebruary 9, 2026
I asked Grok to assign probabilities to all the known facts about the Shroud of Turin and then calculate a…
Rudolph Harrier on Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGIFebruary 9, 2026
It's an interesting thought experiment. However, we will never have a practical implementation of the test because it would be…
Briggs on Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGIFebruary 9, 2026
hudbwu, You could be right.
hudbwu on Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGIFebruary 9, 2026
Caution: it may be that intelligence can not be confirmed by any behavioral test. For example, free will can not…
Lucy Tucker on How Women’s Equality In Democracies Changes Voting (And Everything Else)February 5, 2026
I’m ready to give up the right to vote.

William M. Briggs

Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGI

Polar Bears Are Doing Fine: Activists, Not So Well

Impossible LSAT Statistics Question

How Women’s Equality In Democracies Changes Voting (And Everything Else)

Class 77: Trendy Trends In Time Series

Who Still Listens To AM Radio?

Scientists Invent New Name For Models: Digital Twins

What Science Says About Making Medication Mandatory

What A Winter

FDA Goes Bayes: It Should Have Gone Probability

Class 76: That’s Not Noise. That’s Signal!

AI: The Earth Is Spinning Faster & Slower (Because “Climate Change”)

Confirmation Bias In The Minneapolis Shooting

Sports Betting Is An Excellent Way To Lose Money

Class 75: A Gentle Introduction To Time Series

The Consent Fallacy

On Laws Banning Hacking Women’s Genitals & Imposing Beliefs

Register Your Predictions For 2026!

Happy New Year!

How Did We Do In Our 2025 Predictions?

Why The Drake Equation Fails