Posted inStatistics
Bayesian Statistics Ruled Illegal?
Andrew Montford, who runs Bishop Hill blog, had a post titled "IPCC statistics ruled illegal" in which he said, "Bayesian statistics, the approach favoured by the IPCC in its assessments…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Subjective Versus Objective Bayes (Versus Frequentism): Part III
Following Part II, here are some examples to show the differences between objectivist, subjectivist, and frequentist probabilities derived from fixed premises and set conclusions. Example 1 Not all probability is…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
How Presidential Polls Work: D+7 or R-3 And All That
Unleash the polls! No, I don't mean the men who bravely served under Grand Duke of Lithuania Władysław II Jagiełło (free bad joke of the day!), but those election omens…
Posted inFun Statistics
Scratch-off Lottery Tickets: Expected Payouts, A Hidden Benefit?
Update See the comments, but thanks to readers' arguments I believe I was wrong in an essential calculation. I've reworked the text to correct my error, which was small in…
Posted inPhilosophy
Bioengineering Humans To Combat Climate Change
Aren't bioethicists a fun bunch? When last we met this speculative crew, they were wondering whether we should "let baby live", and they were developing a pill to eliminate racism.…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Lesson Two Redux: More Mysticism
Is it written into sport announcers' contract that they shall speak in nothing but cliché? Since there is always great confusion about why premises about "fairness" or "randomness" are not…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Statistics as Beauty; Global Warming Miscellany; SATs Biased?; More
Statistics is Beautiful? From reader Yeah, Yeah comes a link to a Wired article which assures us we should "Learn the Language of Data." It's not a pretty language, but…
Posted inStatistics
Newcomb’s Paradox And Probability
This article was suggested by reader JH who saw it discussed at Massimo Pigliucci's site. When he was at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, William Newcomb devised the following puzzle, which…
