Statistics – Page 142 – William M. Briggs

Headline: We Used Terrible Science to Justify Smoking Bans. Amen: We Did

When they used to tell me I would shorten my life ten years by smoking, they little knew the devotee they were wasting their puerile word upon---they little knew how…

Philosophy Statistics

Induction & Essence

Suppose we observe a raven. It's black. We see a second, also black. And so on for a few dozen more. We reason, or rather we argue with ourselves, "Since…

Philosophy Statistics

The Big Bang, Eternal Inflation & Many Worlds

We're back to our Edge series of ideas scientists wish more people knew about. Today is John C. Mather and the Big Bang. Mather isn't pleased with popular conceptions. What…

Statistics

Stream: NOAA Whistleblower Claims Data Were ‘Adjusted’ to Make Global Warming Seem Worse

Stream: NOAA Whistleblower Claims Data Were 'Adjusted' to Make Global Warming Seem Worse: Climatology, Not The Planet, Is Running A Fever. A scientist-whistleblower has accused the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric…

Statistics

The Consensus That Wasn’t: Less Than 1%, Not 97%

If I hear that "97% of scientists agree..." nonsense number just one more time---why, I'll laugh. And why not? It is comedy in its best democratic form. That screwy figure…

Statistics

Big Data, Big Predictions — Big Deal!

The title, you'll be shocked to learn, is sarcastic. You'll forgive the tone after reading NBC's article "Big Data's Big Misses: 2016 Was a Bad Year For Predictions", which opens…

Culture Statistics

The Vatican’s Biological Extinction Conference

It's old news now that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences has invited the death loving and appalling and serially wrong Paul Ehrlich to its conference on Biological Extinction. LifeSite reports:…

Philosophy Statistics

On The Demon Possessed Doll & Little Girl

You might have seen the video of the little girl playing near a doll, a doll which twitches its head without visible promoting. The video switches views and sees the…

Briggs on In Which I Shockingly Agree With Sabine That Most Science Is Of Little Or No ValueSeptember 23, 2025
Mark, Tomorrow. Thanks.
Brian (bulaoren) on The Charlie Kirk Killing Theories: The (Non)-Mathematics Of Conspiracy Theories 2September 23, 2025
Has Occam's razor been banned yet?
NLR on In Which I Shockingly Agree With Sabine That Most Science Is Of Little Or No ValueSeptember 23, 2025
Such science is a genuine problem, but it's far down the list of the problems plaguing humanity right now. Generally,…
Zundfolge on The Charlie Kirk Killing Theories: The (Non)-Mathematics Of Conspiracy Theories 2September 23, 2025
I propose a Unified Field Theory of Conspiracy Theories. Most of them are false, and the false ones used to…
Cary Cotterman on The Charlie Kirk Killing Theories: The (Non)-Mathematics Of Conspiracy Theories 2September 23, 2025
Ever since L. H. Oswald, every assassination has had endless alternate theories, always involving another shooter, coverups, the CIA or…