Posted inStatistics
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…
Posted inStatistics
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…
Posted inStatistics
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…
Posted inStatistics
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…
Posted inPhilosophy 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.…
Posted inBook 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…
Posted inStatistics
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"…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
On Nate Silver’s Predictions: Which Side Of The Probability Equation Are We On?
When I checked FiveThirtyEight.com's Senate prediction, it said "Republicans have a 72.3% chance of winning a majority." There were also words that the "probability that each party will win control…