Statistics – Page 115 – William M. Briggs

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,…

Class Statistics

When Testing Parameters Might Make Sense

This example is derived from ongoing conversations with a colleague, and portions of this post (mathematified) might show up in a paper. The genesis of this example is from Ron…

Statistics

SAT’s Adversity Score New Way To Enforce Racial Quotas

The College Board will soon attach Pity Points to SAT scores. The Pity Points will be used to suggest that those who scored poorly did not in fact score poorly…

Statistics

An Infinity of Null Hypotheses — Another Anti-P-Value Argument

This is extracted from this set of papers, which should be read in full. An ordinary regression model is written mu = beta_0x_1 + ... + beta_0x_p, where mu…

Statistics

Many Atheists Still Believe In Higher Powers—Whatever Those Are

A new report on atheists is of interest. It's "Understanding Unbelief: Atheists and agnostics around the world: Interim findings from 2019 research in Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, the United Kingdom,…

Briggs on The Dysgenics Of IVFNovember 28, 2025
Anne, Ah, Julian Savulescu. A known lunatic. Thanks.
Anne Webb on The Dysgenics Of IVFNovember 28, 2025
You should take a look at this, where one of the authors argues that we may have a moral obligation…
passerby on Antichrist, by Saint Robert BellarmineNovember 27, 2025
> Too many people know about these prophecies Fat lot of good that did for Cassandra, finest prophet ever.
spaceranger on Antichrist, by Saint Robert BellarmineNovember 27, 2025
The online world is our graven image and celebrity culture our false idol.
Brian (bulaoren) on Old Lodge Skins’ Prayer Of ThanksgivingNovember 27, 2025
One thing I am always grateful for (well, 4 days a week) is being able to enjoy your posts. Thank…