Briggs

A Brief Explanation Of Occam’s Razor

We're interested in whether some proposition Y is true. One explanation, perhaps causal or deterministic, or even only probabilistic, is X. Thus, Pr(Y | X) is high or equals 1.…

Culture

Stream: California Tried To Make Global Warming Skepticism Illegal

Today's post is at The Stream: California To Make Global Warming Skepticism Illegal. "All right, Briggsy. We know you're in there! Throw out your notes on improved cloud parameterizations in…

Philosophy SAMT

Summary Against Modern Thought: Arguments Against The World Being Eternal

See the first post in this series for an explanation and guide of our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles. All posts are under the category SAMT. Previous post. We had…

Culture

Rampant Harassment by Atheists Expected At Reason Rally 2016

The Angry Atheists are meeting today, this time in DC, and evidently they're expecting an uppity crowd, because their Code of Conduct for Reason Rally warns of a host of…

Culture Philosophy

Animals Aren’t Men, Even If Government Says So

I once saw, with mine own eyes, a squirrel steal an acorn from a second squirrel. This shouldn't be surprising; squirrels are career criminals and everybody knows it. Think of…

Philosophy Statistics

The Bayesian Metaphor Can Do More Harm Than Good: Update

Quoting from a post on vampires, "In Bayesian inference, you start with some initial beliefs (called 'Bayesian priors' or just 'priors'), and then you 'update' them as you receive new…

Podcast

Multiverses, Infinities, Probability & The Deadly Sin of Reification — WMBriggs Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZffCuj9ZHA Download MP3 June is Probability Month here at WMBriggs.com, mostly because I'll be teaching (I'll be in Ithaca the 12th to 24th) and want to keep from being distracted…

Philosophy

Stream: Pretend to Believe In Free Will Or Else You Will Make Bad Choices

Today's post is at The Stream: Pretend to Believe In Free Will Or Else You Will Make Bad Choices. I want to be nice about this, but believing that we…

Johnno on The Great Smoothing: Another Reason Not To Fear (or trust) AIMarch 10, 2026
I'm panicking about the people who believe enthusiastically in the capabilities of the AI that the other people are panicking…
Rudolph Harrier on The Great Smoothing: Another Reason Not To Fear (or trust) AIMarch 10, 2026
I've started thinking of this as the "juice loosener problem" (after the Simpsons bit where Dr. Nick hawks an orange…
Cary D Cotterman on The Great Smoothing: Another Reason Not To Fear (or trust) AIMarch 10, 2026
After spending years in school doing my own writing, then decades in my profession busting my ass to write somewhere…
Uncle Mike on The Great Smoothing: Another Reason Not To Fear (or trust) AIMarch 10, 2026
AI isn't the entity smoothing the data. The alleged decline in Arctic sea ice was a key assertion in Algore's…
JH on A Synchronicity Or Coincidence? What Is Behind Curious Events?March 10, 2026
The definition of cause can vary, and each incident may have its causes or contributing factors. I see coincidences as…