Statistics – Page 132 – 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,…

Barry Grant on Class 95: Answering P-Value Good Uses ChallengesSeptember 26, 2026
I don't know if this is a good use of p-values, but it is definitely a use, one that seems…
John Pate on Whoring For Climate ChangeSeptember 24, 2026
Until we get back to burning heretics at the stake I don't see any solution to this kind of behaviour.
John Pate on Lady Academics Tire Of Being Judged By Peer ReviewSeptember 24, 2026
Private companies still run enormous R&D labs but they're funded by black budget "defence" appropriations doing the Devil's work. They…
Cary Cotterman on Whoring For Climate ChangeSeptember 24, 2026
Brosch and his ilk don't know squat about "scientific facts". They deal in pseudoscientific nonsense.
McChuck on Whoring For Climate ChangeSeptember 24, 2026
I refuse, on general principles, to use the Left's Newspeak. She is a whore, or prostitute if we're being polite.…