Philosophy – Page 149 – William M. Briggs

Michael Crichton and SETI

Michael Crichton, as you will have heard by now, is dead. Unfortunately. The Wall Street Journal today reprinted an excerpt of a speech Crichton gave called "Aliens Cause Global Warming."…

Book review Philosophy Statistics

Breaking the Law of Averages: Real-Life Probability and Statistics in Plain English

It is finally done! You may order directly from the publisher here1. The book will also be available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. in about a month. I'll update…

Philosophy

Science is decided by committee

Scientists still do not appear to understand sufficiently that all earth sciences must contribute evidence toward unveiling the state of our planet in earlier times, and that the truth of…

Fun Philosophy

It turns out---shockingly, to some correct-thinking academics---that the bonobo ape is just as bloodthirsty as the rest of the higher primates. Yes, it's true. Bonobos, a sex- and peace-loving species…

Fun Philosophy

Looks like an own goal to me

Friend of humanity, meteorologist, and philosopher Tom Hamill reminds us of this clip: Which reminds me to this clip, one of the very few songs the lyrics of which I…

Philosophy Statistics

Why probability isn’t relative frequency: redux

(Pretend, if you have, that you haven't read my first weak attempt. I'm still working on this, but this gives you the rough idea, and I didn't want to leave…

Philosophy Statistics

Not all uncertainty can be quantified

(This essay will form, when re-written more intelligently, part of Chapter 15, the final Chapter, of my book. Which is coming....soon? The material below is not easy nor brief, folks.…

Book review Philosophy Statistics

The limits of statistics: black swans and randomness

The author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, has penned the essay THE FOURTH QUADRANT: A MAP OF THE LIMITS OF STATISTICS over at Edge.org…

Johnno on Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education Causes Mass SquealingNovember 3, 2025
Briggs, you fool! There are always the judges! There is no shortage of left under handed women on the bench…
Uncle Mike on Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education Causes Mass SquealingNovember 3, 2025
Vox clamantis in deserto
NLR on Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education Causes Mass SquealingNovember 3, 2025
The universities have serious problems and the criticism of them is justly warranted. But from these excerpts this compact is…
Hagfish Bagpipe on Changes Are Coming: Our Return to 1970sOctober 31, 2025
To follow up, on screaming -- in 1986 I fell off a turnip wagon, blond and blue, in New York…
Hagfish Bagpipe on Changes Are Coming: Our Return to 1970sOctober 31, 2025
Briggs, you are the master of hard-boiled, surreal, precise, colorful, expansive poetry masquerading as cultural commentary. You are our age's…