Book review – Page 8 – William M. Briggs

Uncertainty: The Soul of Models, Probability & Statistics. Chapter Abstracts

This post originally appeared right before the Uncertainty did. Now that we're 1.5 years out, it's time for a re-post. Buy it now, but it today, and buy it again…

Take Burnham’s Test To See If You’re A Progressive: <em>Suicide of the West</em> at 50

Book review Culture

Take Burnham’s Test To See If You’re A Progressive: Suicide of the West at 50

This classic column appeared in July 2015. Besides some editing, I would now change 'liberal' to 'progressive', which I have done in the title. I made no other change. See…

Book review Culture

Glubb Pasha’s Experiences With American Democracy

[The image above flashed by on the interwebs, and it struck me as humorously apt, though I can't now recall where I first saw it. If the picture has any…

Book review Philosophy

Why Not Only Us? Men Speak, Animals Make Noise

A review of the book Why Only Us: Language and Evolution by Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky. Everybody knows, or used to know, that only men speak. Animals make noise,…

Book review Statistics

Math: Old, New, and Equalitarian — A Review

I have a new paper out in Academic Questions, a review, "Math: Old, New, and Equalitarian." Springer is charging a mere pittance for viewing it. Only $39.95. But I think…

Book review Philosophy

The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions by David Berlinski

A modified version of this article ran 14 April 2008. There are a recent number of books seeking to either demonstrate, scientifically, that God does not exist, or to show…

Book review

Sean Carroll’s “The Big Picture” Reviewed: Why “Poetic Naturalism” is an Oxymoron — Guest Post by Bob Kurland

Another version of this article first appeared at Kurland's site. Scientism, the belief that science can explain everything about the world and ourselves, is a religion, although not formally expressed…

Book review

Austin Ruse’s ‘Fake Science: Exposing the Left’s Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data’

Austin Ruse kindly sent me a copy of his new Fake Science: Exposing the Left's Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data, a book readers of this blog will take…

hudbwu on Believing In God Makes You Crave Potato Chips, Say AcademicsJuly 26, 2026
And to think that 20 years ago, when I was much younger, I would have fallen for these things.
Eric Kay Sci Fi on $7.11 at 7:11 PM on 7/11 at 7/11: What Are The Chances?July 24, 2026
Thanks for the write-up. Thinking about things in the way of a probability distribution has always helped me, but also…
Philip Rogan on $7.11 at 7:11 PM on 7/11 at 7/11: What Are The Chances?July 24, 2026
Brian, good comment. A coincidence is only a coincidence to the person to which the coincidence occurred.
John Pate on $7.11 at 7:11 PM on 7/11 at 7/11: What Are The Chances?July 23, 2026
Now do Synchronicity.
Brian (bulaoren) on $7.11 at 7:11 PM on 7/11 at 7/11: What Are The Chances?July 23, 2026
If a 7/11 sale occurrs in a forest, and nobody is around to document it, does it make a sound?…