Statistics – Page 189 – William M. Briggs

Scientists Discover Men Enjoy Looking At Women’s Breasts.

Regular readers will recall there are two main kinds of bad statistics. First is when the technique has been done wrong or is misapplied. Errors of this kind comprise only…

Philosophy Statistics

What Statistics Really Is: Part II

Read Part I, Part Paradox I claimed, and it is true, that all statistical problems could be written $latex \Pr(p|q)$, where p is a proposition of interest and q is…

Philosophy Statistics

What Statistics Really Is: Paradox Digression

Read Part I We're taking a small digression to answer a question put by Deborah Mayo in Part I, pointing to this article on her site. Mayo should be on…

Philosophy Statistics

What Statistics Really Is: Part I

It's so simple that you'll think I'm kidding. Worse, the way I'll show it is such a radical departure from the manner in which you're used to thinking about probability…

Statistics

Statistics Talk: Chances Are You’re Doing It Wrong

The problem with statistics is the astonishing amount of magical thinking tolerated. A statistician---or his apprentice; this means you---waving a formula over a dataset is little different than an alchemist…

Philosophy Statistics

What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement? Hypothesis Tests

Edge asked a whopping number of named persons which ideas are ready to be expunged from the thing that is Science. Somehow my invitation got lost in the aether, an…

Culture Philosophy Statistics

Malthus’ Proof That Welfare Leads To Increasing Need For Welfare

First person that giggles at my hand drawings gets a mean look. My computing facilities are somewhat lacking... This of course is only a cartoon, but a helpful one of…

Statistics

About That Lefties-Drink-More-Than-Conservatives Study

"Honey? Did you meet our new neighbors?" "Not yet. Why?" "I'm a little worried about them. They have an 'I heart NPR' sticker on their Prius." "Oh, God. Pass me…

Briggs on The Mathematics Of Conspiracy Theories. Part 1: Black Eye Club ExampleJune 16, 2025
Paul, You're right. It sucked. I'm redoing. JH, Very well. Construct for us a model that does not do what…
Paul murphy on The Mathematics Of Conspiracy Theories. Part 1: Black Eye Club ExampleJune 16, 2025
Ok, maybe I need more coffee but I found that very confusing - too much I think that you think…
JH on The Mathematics Of Conspiracy Theories. Part 1: Black Eye Club ExampleJune 16, 2025
The mathematical result from the Di Finetti's 0-1 Representation Theorem discussed here tells us, under the assumption of exchangeability (which…
spudjr60 on The Mathematics Of Conspiracy Theories. Part 1: Black Eye Club ExampleJune 16, 2025
Well, it is a good thing, that I know beyond any doubt that all conspiracy theories are false. And, I…
hudbwu on Over-Certainty Of Polygenic ScoresJune 11, 2025
I stopped midway to write this comment. What exactly is the difference between polygenic scores and two-layer neural networks? Other…