Statistics – Page 189 – William M. Briggs

Don’t Use Statistics Unless You Have To

We're finally getting it, as evinced by the responses to the article "Netherlands Temperature Controversy: Or, Yet Again, How Not To Do Time Series." Let's return to the Screaming Willies.…

Statistics

On That New “Gay Gene” Study

First and most important point: there is no way we're going to cover in 750 words the whole of this field. Much will be left out. This small article is…

Statistics

Predicting Doom—Guest Post by Thomas Galli

I am not a statistics wizard; an engineer, I value the predictive power of statistics. Indeed, if one can precisely control variables in the design of an experiment, statistics-based prediction…

Statistics

Nonpolitical Images Evoke Neural Predictors Of Political Ideology?

The study Another day, another dreary study purporting to show that the brains of "conservatives" are different than those of "liberals." This one hooked up to an electrical phrenology device…

Statistics

Nothing Is Distributed: So-Called Random Variables Do Not Follow Distributions

People say "random" variables "behave" in a certain way as if they have a life of their own. To behave is to act, to be caused, to react. This is…

Philosophy Statistics

BBC: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? BBC: Because Something

Opens the BBC's campaign: Some physicists think they can explain why the universe first formed. If they are right, our entire cosmos may have sprung out of nothing at all.…

Book review Philosophy Statistics

An Introduction To Uncertainty: Probability, Statistics, and Modeling of All Kinds

This is a teaser, the first part of a 3,200-word narrative outline for the book that I've started to shop around. The current title is in the headline. Regular readers…

Statistics

Sex With 21 (Not 20) Women Lowers Risk Of Prostate Cancer. It’s Science!

Today's headline was modified from the Telegraph, one of the least lurid and sensationalistic of those generated by the peer-reviewed paper "Sexual partners, sexually transmitted infections, and prostate cancer risk"…

C- Marie on Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGIFebruary 9, 2026
I understood much of the logic of this. Thank you, Matt! God bless, C- Marie
shawn marshall on Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGIFebruary 9, 2026
I asked Grok to assign probabilities to all the known facts about the Shroud of Turin and then calculate a…
Rudolph Harrier on Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGIFebruary 9, 2026
It's an interesting thought experiment. However, we will never have a practical implementation of the test because it would be…
Briggs on Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGIFebruary 9, 2026
hudbwu, You could be right.
hudbwu on Why The Recent Claims Of AGI Fail: Plus, A New Test For AGIFebruary 9, 2026
Caution: it may be that intelligence can not be confirmed by any behavioral test. For example, free will can not…