William M. Briggs

The Economic Fallacy, Greenpeace, David Suzuki, And Global Warming

"You can't believe what that guy says. He research was funded by Greenpeace!" The person uttering this sentence has committed the economic fallacy, which is the belief that the truth…

Book review

Earth Has A Fever: How Can We Cool It?

Earth Fever: Living Consciously with Climate Change by Judy McAllister, Erik van Praag, and Jan Paul van Soest With Foreword by Hazel Henderson and Preface, by Jacqueline Cramer, Minister for…

Philosophy Statistics

Bathroom Stage Fright A “Real Condition” : Scientists Again Prove What Was Already Known

In standard science-report prose, MSNBC begins: Given the choice, you probably prefer your home porcelain throne to using a public toilet. But for more than 20 million people in North…

Fun Statistics

Does Second To Fourth Digit Ratio Predict You-Know-What Length?

From the storied Halls of Science comes an important new study, here abstracted from the Asian Journal of Andrology1. I apologize for the length of this excerpt, but it is…

Philosophy Statistics

Casey Anthony And The Probability of Guilt

What is the probability that Casey Anthony is guilty of murder? High, but according to twelve men and women honest and true, not high enough. High enough is supposed to…

Statistics

New Editorial Against Editorializing In Science Journals

The editorial is mine, Willie Soon's, David Legates's, and Bob Carter's, and it appears in the latest edition of Water, Air, & Soil Pollution. It's entitled "A Vaccine Against Arrogance"…

Culture Statistics

Title IX And Campus Equality

Under Title IX, a woman is entitled to equal access to everything on a college campus. That includes being safe. The most devastating thing is a young girl who reports…

Culture

San Francisco, Banning Capitol: Adds Pets To Forbidden List

The uber-enlightened which are the San Francisco city council and its hangers on have banned: McDonald's Happy Meals (they objected to kids being happy), cigarette smoking nearly everywhere (they refuse…

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 Wallace on The Paper Test Shows Why AGI Is Not Possible: And Why The Brain Is Different In KindMarch 6, 2026
I believe that the anger which creeps into conversations about whether or not AI can become sentiment has nothing to…
NLR on The Paper Test Shows Why AGI Is Not Possible: And Why The Brain Is Different In KindMarch 5, 2026
I agree with the paper test; like the Chinese room argument, it is a way to illustrate that a mechanical…

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