Briggs

Precaution: Part V (Final)—Guest Post by J.C. Hanekamp

Read Part IV Trying to create an ideal world by precautionary design carries utopian overtones of a nostalgic streak, also known the pastoral ideal that is so well described by…

Statistics

Privatization Kills?: Or, Doctors Under Government Control Save More Lives?

Quick, answer this without thinking: which is better for your health, living under a communist regime or a capitalist system? If you said "communist", may I wager you're an academic?…

Culture Statistics

Adjusted Mass Public Shootings per Decade Uncorrelated With Gun Ownership

Here are the Mass Public Shootings per Decade from the 1900s through 2012, adjusted for population. The rate is mass-shootings per million per decade, using the average population of the…

Philosophy Statistics

Precaution: Part IV—Guest Post by J.C. Hanekamp

Read Part III. Science plays an interesting role in precautionary culture. Overall, science is looked at in our culture as a discerning field of advice in terms of numerous aspects…

Culture

What Happened to the News?—Guest Post by the Blonde Bombshell

My father was a wire editor of our local paper. Even though the paper was "local" and covered a few counties, there was much more news than who married, who…

Statistics

Precaution: Part III—Guest Post by J.C. Hanekamp

Read Part II. Precaution is essential, so the tale goes, to create policies and laws that focus on and tackle uncertainty that might be the foreboding of particular risks. The…

Fun Philosophy

Is There Free Will? A Conversation With Dr. Sam Hurtus

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1MbL6wbg1Y&w=560&h=315] I got the idea for this from regular reader Jim Fedako, who points us to a cute video showing the screwiness of p-values. Turns out the video was…

Statistics

Anthropogenic Forcing Signals Not Significant? New Polynomial Cointegration Test Paper

I have been asked by a number of people to comment on a new paper that purportedly shows that "statistical tests for global warming fails to find statistically significantly anthropogenic…

JH on Class 53: Laplace Was Right!June 6, 2025
Since you used (8.7) at the beginning of the video, let me try again. A calculus fact: If f(N) approaches…
When Chief Editors’ reviews go off the rails: Frontiers’/Dr. Eddy Davelaar’s criticism of our accepted meta-analysis and our detailed response – bobuttl.org on The World’s Easiest Sociological Prediction Has Been VerifiedJune 5, 2025
[…] William M. Briggs (2024, Feb 8): The World’s Easiest Sociological Prediction Has Been Verified… […]
Milton Hathaway on Even The Woke Say Science Is Petering OutJune 4, 2025
I seem to be missing something here. The "Average CD" chart shows a marked decline, while the "Total Papers" chart…
Uncle Mike on Even The Woke Say Science Is Petering OutJune 4, 2025
The problem, in a nutshell, is the trending longitudinal bibliometrics of stochastic heuristics. Vouchsafe the imperative and quotidian drivel perpetuates.
Milton Hathaway on Expert Nathan Confas: Experts Know BestJune 4, 2025
There is a well-known phenomenon in my occupation (engineering), and, I assume, in many other occupations. By nature, engineers love…