Statistics – Page 218 – William M. Briggs

Researchers Invent Exciting New Disease: Poverty Blindness

There must soon come a day at The Onion, the satirical newspaper, when the editors will gather in bewilderment and say to each other, "Fellas, there's no use. The real…

Statistics

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…

John Pate on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 28, 2026
We should all re-read our Ted Kaczynski materials. A man ahead of his time.
Brian (bulaoren) on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 28, 2026
While in university, I took a class called "Symbolic Logic". Logic was then taught through the Philosophy department, which was…
Cary Cotterman on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 28, 2026
Any giant ant who will eat Joan Collins is worth at least his weight in humans.
McChuck on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 28, 2026
Those who lack faith (belief) in God will believe in anything. Atheism is, itself, a religion, and as such under…
NLR on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 28, 2026
If the problem was simply that they were logical but not reasonable, that would not be great. But the real…