William M. Briggs

How People Come To Believe Something As Stupid As Male & Female Equality

Thanatos Savehn reminded be of this Atlantic piece from a decade ago: "The Truth About Little Women Carrying Big Wounded Men in Combat", by somebody using the name Elspeth Reeve.…

Statistics

Academics Say Morality Isn’t Decreasing, But The Increasing Numbers Who Say It Is Decreasing Cause Morality To Decrease

This is part of our Mind of Academics series. I struggled both long, and, yes, hard, to come up with a clever joke to introduce today's academic "research", which claims…

Culture

End All Formal Science Journals & Papers

Time to return to the beginning. End formal science papers and let scientists talk freely amongst themselves. Here's why. Heard about the formal peer-reviewed paper "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent…

Philosophy Statistics

There Is No Difference Between A Proposal, Hypothesis, Model, Theory or Law

Ready for some Logic 101? Something real easy, I promise. We'll use it in service to show why falsificationism is not that interesting, or useful, and we'll need it in…

Culture

The Simple Math That Proves Our Worship Of Victims Must Cause Our Doom

I did a poor job explaining that The Only Way To Avoid Illegal Discrimination Is To Illegally Discriminate. I said: I won’t show the math, but it should be easy…

Fun

Briggs You Tool! UFOs Are Real & Driven By Top Secret American Pilots, Insists Reader

I changed the title, slightly, from Briggs, You Fool! You'll see why. Anon writes: You’ve missed the entire point about the ufo story. You can deny the existence of alien…

Culture

Academics Fear People. They Study Them & Wish They Could Shut Them Up

We are going to explore, in a series of posts, the Mind of The Academic. There is much to say on this depressing-yet-amusing topic, which by itself is worthy of…

Statistics

What The Law Of Large Numbers Really Means

JJ Couey, who hosts a podcast well known to some of you, and friend of the Broken Science Initiative, asked me about the so-called Law of Large Numbers. Jay wonders…

McChuck on Test Your IQ With These Puzzles! (Not So Easy!)July 1, 2025
The answer for the pictured question is obviously '1', as the slot already has a '1' in it, which has…
Briggs on Test Your IQ With These Puzzles! (Not So Easy!)July 1, 2025
Mark, That's exactly it.
Mark on Test Your IQ With These Puzzles! (Not So Easy!)July 1, 2025
Wittgenstein gave some examples like this in his Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics, a book I had no business…
hudbwu on AI & Chess Both Produce Pre-Coded OutputJuly 1, 2025
The wrinkle is in the (pseudo-)random number generator. In principle, the random number generator can be hijacked by a higher…
hudbwu on On The Probability Of GodJuly 1, 2025
I don't think omnibenevolence is part of the definition of God. Not only because, as you stated, there is nothing…

William M. Briggs

Test Your IQ With These Puzzles! (Not So Easy!)

How Can You Tell If You Have ESP?

Class 56: The Best Model!

Sabine Hossenfelder’s Free Will Folly & The Deadly Sin Of Reification

England’s Mandatory Suicide & Women

On The Probability Of God

Class 55: Models Vs Reality

AI & Chess Both Produce Pre-Coded Output

The Hubris Of Experts: NIH Edition

The Mathematics Of Conspiracy Theories. Part 1: Black Eye Club Example

Class 54: Exchangeability & Parameters

Over-Certainty Of Polygenic Scores

AI & The Dilemma Of Technology

What Are The Chances Thomas Jefferson & John Adams Died On The Fourth of July, 1826?

Class 53: Laplace Was Right!

Even The Woke Say Science Is Petering Out

Expert Nathan Confas: Experts Know Best

Science Claims 7% Of Adults Saw A Mass Shooting

Class 52: The Origin Of Parameters

IQ Is Not Intelligence

What Are The Chances…George Wendt Dies On Same Day Cheers Ended 32 Years Before?

Test Your IQ With These Puzzles! (Not So Easy!)

How Can You Tell If You Have ESP?

How People Come To Believe Something As Stupid As Male & Female Equality

Academics Say Morality Isn’t Decreasing, But The Increasing Numbers Who Say It Is Decreasing Cause Morality To Decrease

End All Formal Science Journals & Papers

There Is No Difference Between A Proposal, Hypothesis, Model, Theory or Law

The Simple Math That Proves Our Worship Of Victims Must Cause Our Doom

Briggs You Tool! UFOs Are Real & Driven By Top Secret American Pilots, Insists Reader

Academics Fear People. They Study Them & Wish They Could Shut Them Up

What The Law Of Large Numbers Really Means

There Is No Culture Without Inequality: Stove 1

Impose Your Beliefs Before They Impose Theirs

Telekinesis: Ideas In Our Reenchantment & Rectification

The Physics Of Blessings: Ideas In Our Reenchantment & Rectification