Philosophy – Page 61 – William M. Briggs

Summary Against Modern Thought: Chance Is Not A Cause

See the first post in this series for an explanation and guide of our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles. All posts are under the category SAMT. Previous post. Be careful!…

Philosophy Statistics

A Brief Explanation Of Occam’s Razor

We're interested in whether some proposition Y is true. One explanation, perhaps causal or deterministic, or even only probabilistic, is X. Thus, Pr(Y | X) is high or equals 1.…

Philosophy SAMT

Summary Against Modern Thought: Arguments Against The World Being Eternal

See the first post in this series for an explanation and guide of our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles. All posts are under the category SAMT. Previous post. We had…

Culture Philosophy

Animals Aren’t Men, Even If Government Says So

I once saw, with mine own eyes, a squirrel steal an acorn from a second squirrel. This shouldn't be surprising; squirrels are career criminals and everybody knows it. Think of…

Philosophy Statistics

The Bayesian Metaphor Can Do More Harm Than Good: Update

Quoting from a post on vampires, "In Bayesian inference, you start with some initial beliefs (called 'Bayesian priors' or just 'priors'), and then you 'update' them as you receive new…

Philosophy

Stream: Pretend to Believe In Free Will Or Else You Will Make Bad Choices

Today's post is at The Stream: Pretend to Believe In Free Will Or Else You Will Make Bad Choices. I want to be nice about this, but believing that we…

Philosophy SAMT

Summary Against Modern Thought: Failed Arguments For The Eternity Of The World II

See the first post in this series for an explanation and guide of our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles. All posts are under the category SAMT. Previous post. Format change…

Culture Philosophy Statistics

Why Is Economics Plagued By Math?

The answer is easy: because math is numbers and numbers are measurement and measurements are necessary to make a subject "scientific" in the modern sense of that word. Why should…

Does Watching TV Cause Autism? – William M. Briggs on Does watching TV cause autism?July 23, 2025
[…] classic column originally ran 31 July 2008. I edited it to provide a working link to the paper and…
“??? ???? ???, ????? ?? ? ?”…?? ?? – ?????? on Two Statistical Curiosities That Allowed Biden To Pull Ahead In PA: ONE CURIOSITY SOLVED: BAD DATA ENTRYJuly 23, 2025
[…] ?? 4? ?? 9?? ??? 3??? ??? ? ? 1??? ????(??? ??). ??? ????? ?? ?? ?? ???? ????,…
Johnno on Peer-Reviewed Research: Men Find Looking At Nearly Naked Women DistractingJuly 22, 2025
Why couldn't I have been involved as a participant in this study? I would enjoy the opportunity to be paid…
David Willis on Peer-reviewed research: Men find looking at nearly naked women distractingJuly 22, 2025
hahahahahahhahahahahah This shit is too much.
C.Saltimor on Reader Opinion Requested: What Science Do You Find Sketchy, Exaggerated Or Wrong?July 22, 2025
- Fomenko's claim that (ao) ancient astronomical publications and unexplainable parallels in history accounts show that our chronology upto AD…