William M. Briggs

Data Mining, PRISM, NSA & False Positives: Update

Remember how---this is a really brief history lesson--remember how the NSA, CIA, FBI, and many other of those lettered agencies with their ever-increasing budgets, super-sophisticated computers, genius brain mathematicians, statisticians,…

Philosophy Statistics

What Should Philosophers Of Statistics Do?

A while back, far longer than it should have been, D.G. Mayo asked me to stop by her place and comment on a couple of posts. But laziness and excessive…

Philosophy Statistics

Never Say “Caused By Chance”

One of the services of this blog is grammatical guidance. In that spirit, here are phrases which should be forbidden, and will be once I am in charge (all highlights…

Book review Culture

George Weigel’s Evangelical Catholicism, A Brief Review

Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church, George Weigel. The Good Old Days may never have existed, but surely there were better days. Worse days, too. It is also…

Statistics

The Consensus On Global Cooling

It is an interesting exercise to read press reports of the Consensus. The Consensus as was, not as is. The Consensus as of 1975, when the sky was literally going…

Culture Philosophy

Relevance, Tolerance, And Vanishing Christianity

From Tim Stanley of the Telegraph: America's liberal Christians might be progressive and inclusive, but they are also dying out. The marketing mantra of liberal Christianity is "change or die."…

Fun

Taiwanese And Chinese Toilet Icons

I found these on a public toilet in Ping Shi, more famous for its lantern festival. It's only a matter of time before tourists flock to see them. I was…

Statistics

Tweet Hate Map: Awful, Really Awful Use Of Statistics

I give you "Dr" Monica Stephens from Humbolt State University and her widely dispersed Twitter "Hate Map." The thumbnail here doesn't give the picture the full injustice it deserves, so…

JH on A Synchronicity Or Coincidence? What Is Behind Curious Events?March 10, 2026
The definition of cause can vary, and each incident may have its causes or contributing factors. I see coincidences as…
JH on The Great Smoothing: Another Reason Not To Fear (or trust) AIMarch 10, 2026
AI can be ‘gullible’ because it takes all the information fed into its optimization or backpropagation system. In many tasks,…
Richard on A Synchronicity Or Coincidence? What Is Behind Curious Events?March 9, 2026
My son-in-law calls these "cosmic coincidences". We share with each other "interesting" or "unusual" ones we've each experienced. Of course,…
Brian (bulaoren) on A Synchronicity Or Coincidence? What Is Behind Curious Events?March 9, 2026
Funny, I was just thinking about synchronicity...
Jennifer on Class 81: The Second Biggest Error In Time SeriesMarch 7, 2026
Ran across this and thought you could be interested: A Combat Scenario-Based Model for Quantifying Ethical Decision?Making in Military AI…

William M. Briggs

The Great Smoothing: Another Reason Not To Fear (or trust) AI

A Synchronicity Or Coincidence? What Is Behind Curious Events?

Class 81: The Second Biggest Error In Time Series

The Paper Test Shows Why AGI Is Not Possible: And Why The Brain Is Different In Kind

Researcher Imagines Weather With No Human Influence: Concludes Climate Change Hurts Incomes

Faith Deposited: Why Godless Science Fails

Class 80: Granger Causality; Per Se & Accidental Time Series; Stationarity

Scientists Seeking To Escape Criticism Run To The Warmth & Comfort Of Bluesky

The Loss of Ephemera — Guest Post by The Blonde Bombshell

Class 79: Time Series Example

The Importance Of Not Making Decisions

Don’t Take The ‘Long-Covid’ Alzheimer’s Study Seriously

AI Is Driving Many Crazy: Our Latest Panic

Class 78: The Attempt To Turn Correlation Lead Into Causation Gold In Time Series

Desperate Need For Equality: AP Exam Performance

Some Sanity: Experts Sued For Creating Gender Delusions

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