Posted inCulture
The Chicago Way With Chik-Fil-A
There is a sense in which we all argue that is statistical. For instance, if we say of a group that it sports an "arrogant attitude" we do not mean…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
True Value Of A Parameter
Jelle de Jong writes in to ask: Working as a quant analyst in finance I recently got interested in the Briggsian/Jaynesian/Bayesian interpretation of probability but am still struggling a bit…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
What Probably Isn’t: Heat Waves and Nine Feet Tall Men: Part II
McKibben's Folly Suppose it is true that we have E = "A six-sided object, just one side of which is labeled 6, and when tossed only one side will show."…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
What Probably Isn’t: Heat Waves and Nine Feet Tall Men: Part I
Probability is screwy, and we statisticians do a horrible, rotten job of teaching it. The first thing students learn in normal statistics classes is about "measures of central tendency" or…
Posted inStatistics
Men Nine Feet Tall And Bayes Theorem
The OFloinn put up a most readable and recommended essay When is Weather Really "Climate"? and in one of the comments a reader named Gyan in part said: Many economists…
Posted inCulture Statistics
The Decline And Increase Of Mainstream Religions In The USA: With Pictures!
The Episcopals, like many other old guard protesting religions, are in trouble. Jay Akasie tells us that at this year's annual conclave, the Episcopalian leadership had their most serious discussions…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Certainty & Uncertainty: Logical Probability & Statistics
Since we have spent the weekend with these matters, I thought it appropriate to include the first part of the Introduction to the new book I've been working on. It…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
More On The 1 in 1.6 Million Heat Wave Chance
Yesterday we looked at NCDC's claim that the 13-month stretch of "above-normal" temperatures had only a 1 in 1.6 million chance of occurring. Let's today clarify the criticism. The NCDC…