Statistics – Page 141 – William M. Briggs

Mathematical Association of America Reviews Uncertainty: The Soul of Modeling, Probability & Statistics

William J. Satzer at the Mathematical Association of America reviewed Uncertainty: The Soul of Modeling, Probability & Statistics. Here it is (ellipsis below original). This is a book about probability…

Statistics

Stream: Who’s Better At Playing Doctor, Boys Or Girls?

Stream: Who's Better At Playing Doctor, Boys Or Girls? The NBC News story "Female Doctors Outperform Male Doctors, According to Study" makes these bold claims. Patients treated by women are…

Statistics

Pascal’s Mugging Is Silly: Events Don’t “Have” Probabilities

Before we begin, see this similar article about a different mugging scenario, which demonstrated that all probability is conditional and that decision isn't probability. Here's the serious version of Pascal's…

Fun Statistics

Statistician to the Stars For Hire!

Herein our semi-annual reminder that the purpose of this blog is mercenary. Filthy lucre is both impetus and goal of its daily readings. Moola, the spondulicks, the government's glory, the…

Statistics

Muggings, Nuclear Devices, Probability & Decision

Somehow I ended up on the curious site LessWrong.com, directed by somebody with the nickname Yud (from Eliezer Yudkowsky). Odd isn't in it. Investigating it led me to Reddit and…

Statistics

Don’t Use Statistical Models (When You Don’t Have To. Which Is Nearly Always)

Today, a convincing argument proving the current practice of probability and statistics is mostly wrong, or wrong-headed. The picture above does---and does not---show herbicide use in several countries by year…

Culture Statistics

Science Asks: Why Are Angry Atheists Annoying?

What's more annoying than an atheist who harangues passersby about "rationality"? Easy answer: a scientist who announces a discovery about human behavior that was known by everybody since Adam. Our…

Statistics

Scientific People Understand Reality Less, New Research Didn’t Study

Headline: Religious people understand the world less, study suggests, which derives from the peer-reviewed paper "Does Poor Understanding of Physical World Predict Religious and Paranormal Beliefs?" in Applied Cognitive Psychology…

Briggs on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
Cary, You have read incompletely. God is a necessary being, else there could be no world. That is the classical…
Cary Cotterman on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
"I, a man of 10,000, 5,000, or 2,000 years ago, cannot see how the world functions, therefore I posit (invent)…
Steve on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
OK, but, for example, what denominations forget God is the First Cause? Most of the high church denominations say every…
Brad Tittle on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
My point of view is always wrong. Everyone elses point of view is always correct in their reference frame. How…
Chaeremon on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
evolution possesses a [divine, what else] intelligence through which instinct and subsequently [evolutionary! what else] rationality ar|wer|e invented.