In the 1970s the fear---there is always fear, much of it imaginary or exaggerated---was mass starvation. There were soon, they said, to be too many people, which would lead to…

I've started a new video series called What Are The Chances...? In which I'll look at oddities, curiosities, coincidences, strange and even mundane events and see what we can tell…

Independence implies causality; irrelevance is consistent with logic. A reminder that there is no such thing as unconditional probability. WARNING for those reading the email version! The text below might…

Briggs note: Since my take is that the government ought to get out of science grants altogether, I owe it to you to provide an insider's view (since I am…

Briggs note: The point Jaap makes that measurability does not equate to toxicity, i.e. causal, needs emphasizing. It's related to how you go to the doctor and some measure is,…

The peer-reviewed paper is "Is pregnancy a disease? A normative approach" by Ann Smajdor and Joona Räsänen in BMJ's Journal of Medical Ethics. (Incidentally, for new readers, I always emphasize…

First basics of models and the Deadly Sin. Also the superiority of relevance over the misleading idea of independence. WARNING for those reading the email version! The text below might…

Here is an anecdote---one of several in a theme, they say---about the actor Jim Caviezel during the filming of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ: This was especially evident…