Statistics – Page 101 – William M. Briggs

The Great Protest In England Draws To A Close

Have you heard this? Only 1% of people aged 18-24 identify as Church of England, according to the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey for 2018. Even among over-75s, the most…

Class Statistics

Why The Bootstrap Seems To Work—And Why It Produces Over-Certainty

Let's drag the statistician's hoary threadbare ball-filled bag out of the cupboard to make a point. In it are 3 white balls and 2 black. Using the statistical syllogism, we…

Statistics

Paper Says Some Psychiatric Diagnoses “Scientifically Meaningless”

The title is an understatement: Heterogeneity in psychiatric diagnostic classification. This is a paper in Psychiatry Research by Kate Allsopp, John Read, Rhiannon Corcoran, and Peter Kinderman. Abstract (to which…

Statistics

Yes, There Is A Hot Hand In Basketball

On the Second of March in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred Sixty-Two, well before the sport became another venue for pencil-necked political correctness, a basketball player…

Class Statistics

The Doomsday Argument Is Doomed: Flawed Application Of Bayes

The WSJ on 27 June 2019 published an essay by William Poundstone on the hoary Doomsday Argument. Many are fooled by this equation, which contains a fundamental, even glaring, flaw.…

Statistics

The Epidemiologist Fallacy Strikes Again — Pesticides & Autism

Long-time readers will recall the epidemiologist fallacy is a shotgun marriage of the ecological fallacy and wee p-values. Make that and/or confidence intervals. For confidence intervals are equivalent to p-values…

Class Statistics

So-Called Random Numbers And Encryption: Update With Real-World Example

Psst. Hey, buddy. Word to the wise: "GQNZWZURUDPBFWDMEGBYIXGBGZRSVNHWOIQPPSH GXUVMZ". Keep it secret. That odd string of letters and spaces (well, once space) contains an encrypted message. In order to read…

Statistics

Case Study Of How Easy It Is To Go Wrong

We used to talk a lot about the amygdala here: Yet Another Study "Proves" Liberal, Conservative Brain Differences (wee ps, amygdalas), Scientists Suddenly Discover Men Don't Understand Women (wee ps,…

Hun on What Are The Chances…A Women Survives Cancer 4 Times To Be Killed By “Random” Bullet?May 19, 2025
He looks like a fine fella. What are the stats now? 13/56?
Buzz on Against The Anthropic PrincipleMay 17, 2025
Aren't men supposed to keep their hair short and women long, according to the Bible? Regarding the image.
Johnno on The Nuances and Challenges of Federal Funding for Research — Guest Post by An AcademicMay 16, 2025
There is another casualty of university research funding. Foreign professors hired to do research but who can't teach effectively due…
Brian (bulaoren) on The Nuances and Challenges of Federal Funding for Research — Guest Post by An AcademicMay 16, 2025
I now live in Arkansas, but over the course of my life, I have lived in a good few countries…
N. Ominous on The Sun Made To Set On The British Empire – Via Science!May 15, 2025
<> Yes, it's utterly absurd, but I'm not sure that it is an argument not to do the experiments. If…