Briggs

On The Cubs’ & Trump’s Victories, Nate Silver’s Predictions & All That

https://twitter.com/ThaRightStuff/status/794045050753794048 Some crow is presumably being eaten by Nate Silver and the folks at FiveThirtyEight.com this fine morning. I recommend they bake it into a pie (which I learnt from…

Culture

No Matter Who Wins, We’re Doomed — WMBriggs Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7T0XUOVS2g Download MP3. Note: This was written and recorded last Wednesday, before DickiLeaks et alia, but due to other events I had to delay posting it until today. The return…

Culture

What Russia Wants, Part II — Guest Post by Ianto Watt

Editor's note: This is Part Final of a two-part series. Read Part I. So let me ask you; What is the biggest mountain in Russia? Mt. Athos, of course. Wait.…

Book review Statistics

A Deep Philosophical Account Of Probability

Another review of Uncertainty: The Soul of Modeling, Probability & Statistics, this one taken from an Amazon customer. It was 7 or 8 years ago when I was sitting in…

Culture Statistics

Media Lying With Polls? Is The Pope…Er…Ah, Never Mind

Today's post is at The Stream: Be Skeptical of the Polls: Is the media lying to boost Hillary? Note: I'm putting the Summary Against Modern Thought Sunday series on hiatus…

Philosophy Statistics

Why Is It Okay To Eat Pigs And Not Dogs? Science Does Not Have The Answer

Opening sentence of the abstract in the peer-reviewed paper "When Meat Gets Personal, Animals' Minds Matter Less: Motivated Use of Intelligence Information in Judgments of Moral Standing" in Social Psychological…

Statistics

One World Without Borders Would Lead To Tyranny

Hillary, in her own words, said "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders". She said it, but it's not clear if she believes it.…

Culture

Stream: Satanism, Child Torture, Mind Control — What Is On Hollywood’s Mind?

Today's post is at the Stream: Satanism, Child Torture, Mind Control -- What Is On Hollywood's Mind? Who's up for some child torture? No, seriously. Wouldn't strapping a boy into…

Michael Dowd on On The Probability Of GodJune 23, 2025
Thomas Aquinas: 'To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.'
On The Probability Of God – William M. Briggs on The Crybaby Fallacy (Which Atheists Often Use)June 23, 2025
[…] may have heard of “The Problem of Evil”. It’s always (so far as I’ve seen) stated incorrectly. The real…
John Pate on AI & Chess Both Produce Pre-Coded OutputJune 21, 2025
The inevitable AI Winter is not long coming I feel sure. The question is what will the next big piece…
rando calrissian on AI & Chess Both Produce Pre-Coded OutputJune 20, 2025
Its free because they want to know what you will ask the ai. And that's why most of the free…
JH on The Mathematics Of Conspiracy Theories. Part 1: Black Eye Club ExampleJune 19, 2025
Do you want me to deny the fact that a mathematical or probability model carries specific interpretations based on its…