Posted inCulture
Cultural Suicide: Have A Merry Holidays
Suicide used to be considered a criminal act. Naturally, once you've offed yourself and the authorities have your corpse in hand, there is not much in the way of punishment…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
What’s Wrong With Hypothesis Testing: Reader Question
I received this email from long-time reader Ivin Rhyne, which is so well put that I thought we should all see it (I'm quoting with permission): Matt, I just got…
Posted inCulture Philosophy
John Cage’s 4′ 33″
As much as I think his theories are composed of aether, I wish, and heartily too, that John Cage's masterpiece 4' 33" were pumped through public speakers more often. I…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
What Is A “Statistically Significant Trend”?
Longtime reader Nate Winchester found a discussion---among the many, many---of global warming data revolving around statistics, from which we take the following snippet: You just do the statistics on the…
Posted inStatistics
Global Warming Causes Death
Work is catching up to me this week, so today only the briefest of reports, with the promise of a return to regularity after this weekend. Also keep those post…
Posted inFun
In Praise Of Bad Jokes
"A bus filled with members of a carnival sideshow was found to have crashed through the guard rail, killing all occupants inside. Police are describing it as freak accident." That…
Posted inCulture
What Culture Has Wrought, The Grammys
The guy walked up to me and said---well, what he said started with a word not often seen in print. He ended his two-word phrase with a "you". Far from…
Posted inStatistics
Victorian Book Title Statistics
How many times did the word "God" appear in the title of books published in England from the year 1789 to 1914? And how about "science"? And "truth"? Others? Well,…
