William M. Briggs

When Should The Church Meddle In Science? Guest Post by Bob Kurland

A longer version of this essay can be found at Kurland's site. Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each…

Culture Philosophy Statistics

Bad Arguments Against The Death Penalty: Update

Big news is that both lefty and righty Catholic news sources banded together last week to issue an editorial "Capital Punishment Must End". The subject is enormous; there is no…

Culture Statistics

Race Norming At Universities And The Doctrine Of Unintended Consequences

The Los Angeles Times had a story about how hard East Asians have to work to be admitted to college. Problem is these kids are too smart, an attitude which…

Philosophy Statistics

Sampling Variability Is A Screwy, Misleading Concept

https://twitter.com/Bigdatanalysis/status/573739862924353536 Because of travel and jet lag, exacerbated by "springing forward", we continue our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles next week. If you can't read the tweet above, it says…

Culture

You’re A LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM-aphobe!

I admit it. I am afraid of the sort of person who boasts of being a card-carrying LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM member. I would not want to be in a room alone with…

Culture

Journalist Bias For Sale Vs. Academic Freedom: More On The Soon Pseudo-Controversy

Two parts to this. An email exchange with a reporter, and the column he eventually wrote. Regular readers know I've been documenting these so other can people can see just…

Statistics

Can Microbes Manipulate Minds? Guest Post by Petro Starokadomskyy

Starokadomskyy is at the Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center. He writes about his work in the area our original post "Decline Of Participation In Religious Rituals With…

Statistics

Der Spiegel Asks About Global-Warming-Causes-Syrian-Civil-War Paper

That peer-reviewed Colin Kelley et al. paper "Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought", which the traddy media is portraying like Wired did---e.g. How…

John Pate on Class 98: Limitations of Genetic Associations With PersonalityOctober 23, 2026
The plasticity available in the brain and CNS is the confounding factor. Nature via nurture. What actually gets expressed is…
Brian (bulaoren) on Class 98: Limitations of Genetic Associations With PersonalityOctober 22, 2026
Across the world, many jurisdictions ban pet "pit bulls". Are they in error?
NLR on Against Numerology: Some Basic CalculationsOctober 19, 2026
The mathematician Richard Guy wrote a paper "The strong law of small numbers", where he said, facetiously, but also serirously:…
aGrimm on Book UpdateOctober 16, 2026
I'm looking forward to the book; warts and all the first was enlightening and fun to read.
John Pate on Book UpdateOctober 14, 2026
I'm a big fan of LaTeX. I wrote a class package that made it into one or more of the…

William M. Briggs

Class 98: Limitations of Genetic Associations With Personality

I’m Thinking Of A Number Between 1 and 5 (that you can’t guess)

Against Numerology: Some Basic Calculations

Class 97: The Goal Of Models

Book Update

Sexual Assault Galore At Cornell

Class 96: Can Bayesianism Quantify True Belief?

Top 10 Reasons AI Will Never Become Superintelligence: It Won’t Destroy Nor Save Us

Viewer Asks: Why Do I Bother?

Academics Call For The Killing Of Babies In “After-Birth” Abortions

Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the Ants

Class 95: Answering P-Value Good Uses Challenges

Whoring For Climate Change

Lady Academics Tire Of Being Judged By Peer Review

Class 94: Quantifying The Unquantifiable

PFAS and Preservatives: Entrenching Chemophobia through Everyday Stuff — Guest Post by Jaap Hanekamp

The MRS Degree — Guest Post by Johnathan Edwards

Politicians Demand “Right” To Be Protected Against AI

Class 93: P-values Challenge! List The “Good Uses” of P-value

Is the West Dying Out? The Demographic Crisis Explained: Jon Harris Podcast

Lindsay Clancy Strangled Her Kids Because Of “Climate Change”