Book review – Page 8 – William M. Briggs

Uncertainty: The Soul of Models, Probability & Statistics. Chapter Abstracts

This post originally appeared right before the Uncertainty did. Now that we're 1.5 years out, it's time for a re-post. Buy it now, but it today, and buy it again…

Take Burnham’s Test To See If You’re A Progressive: <em>Suicide of the West</em> at 50

Book review Culture

Take Burnham’s Test To See If You’re A Progressive: Suicide of the West at 50

This classic column appeared in July 2015. Besides some editing, I would now change 'liberal' to 'progressive', which I have done in the title. I made no other change. See…

Book review Culture

Glubb Pasha’s Experiences With American Democracy

[The image above flashed by on the interwebs, and it struck me as humorously apt, though I can't now recall where I first saw it. If the picture has any…

Book review Philosophy

Why Not Only Us? Men Speak, Animals Make Noise

A review of the book Why Only Us: Language and Evolution by Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky. Everybody knows, or used to know, that only men speak. Animals make noise,…

Book review Statistics

Math: Old, New, and Equalitarian — A Review

I have a new paper out in Academic Questions, a review, "Math: Old, New, and Equalitarian." Springer is charging a mere pittance for viewing it. Only $39.95. But I think…

Book review Philosophy

The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions by David Berlinski

A modified version of this article ran 14 April 2008. There are a recent number of books seeking to either demonstrate, scientifically, that God does not exist, or to show…

Book review

Sean Carroll’s “The Big Picture” Reviewed: Why “Poetic Naturalism” is an Oxymoron — Guest Post by Bob Kurland

Another version of this article first appeared at Kurland's site. Scientism, the belief that science can explain everything about the world and ourselves, is a religion, although not formally expressed…

Book review

Austin Ruse’s ‘Fake Science: Exposing the Left’s Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data’

Austin Ruse kindly sent me a copy of his new Fake Science: Exposing the Left's Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data, a book readers of this blog will take…

Briggs on Class 49: Relevance & Importance Of Evidence In ModelsMay 9, 2025
JH, My IQ is simplicity itself to estimate. I have no IQ. Pick up any stats books and look under…
JH on Class 49: Relevance & Importance Of Evidence In ModelsMay 9, 2025
Is there evidence that people believe probabilities, parameters, or mathematical objects exist physically in nature? The fact that mathematicians use…
JH on Class 49: Relevance & Importance Of Evidence In ModelsMay 9, 2025
Relevance is made more difficult when Y is allowed to vary, but the underlying idea is the same. Probability offers…
Tim on Class 49: Relevance & Importance Of Evidence In ModelsMay 8, 2025
What are you playing at, Briggs? Some high-falutin' model equation junk that'll get twisted by politicians in the end anyway?…
Milton Hathaway on AI Cannot Hallucinate Nor LieMay 8, 2025
I have been making heavy use of the more well-known LLMs lately. I use them almost exclusively as "regurgitation engines",…