Posted inPhilosophy
Climategate Peer Review: Science red in tooth and claw
See also see this story on proxies I am a scientist and I have lived around fellow scientists for many years and I know their feeding habits well. I therefore…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Models, theories, consistency, and truth
Ready? Put on your best straight face, recall that global temperatures have not increased for a decade, and that it's actually been getting cooler, then repeat with Brenda Ekwurzel, of…
Posted inBook review Philosophy Statistics
What appeal to authority means and what it doesn’t
This article is meant to be the first is a small series of demonstrations of how not and how to argue for or against climate activism. The level of argumentation…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Theory confirmation and disconfirmation
Time for an incomplete mini-lesson on theory confirmation and disconfirmation. Suppose you have a theory, or model, about how some thing works. That thing might be global warming, stock market…
Posted inPhilosophy
Just what are falling temperatures evidence of?
If increasing temperatures are consistent with or are evidence of global warming, what theory is consistent with or evidence of falling temperatures? Global warming, too? We have to ask this…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Michael Crichton and SETI
Michael Crichton, as you will have heard by now, is dead. Unfortunately. The Wall Street Journal today reprinted an excerpt of a speech Crichton gave called "Aliens Cause Global Warming."…
Posted inFun Philosophy
Roger Kimball’s Challenge
The famous writer Roger Kimball has issued a challenge: Name the silliest argument to be offered by a serious academic in the last 25 years and to be taken up…
Posted inPhilosophy
How to Cheat: Stats 101 Chapter 14
Here is the link. I've decided to jump ahead a few chapters. Chapters 10 - 13 are very important and cover material that comprises 90% of all the actual statistics…