Statistics – Page 232 – William M. Briggs

2012 UEFA European Football Championship And What Probability Is

A pair of statisticians have calculated that, as of 10 June, the probability that Germany takes the 2012 Euro Cup is 26.8%. Russia, they say, comes in with the next…

Culture Philosophy Statistics

We Are All Eugenicists Now: New Test Identifies 3,500 Genetic “Faults” In Fetuses — Update

See the crucial update below. I was assured, several times, that my second son was to be my first daughter. The doctors who told me this had performed certain tests,…

Fun Statistics

Worst Invention Of All Time?

Your help is urgently needed to decide what is the worst invention of all time. Any man-made item, and only man-made items, are eligible. Rocks, for instance, no matter to…

Statistics

How Paranormal Research Differs From Normal Research

Cornell's Daryl Bem case is instructive. He's an academic who has published several notable peer-reviewed articles which claim that (several different versions of) ESP is real. Trouble is, despite the…

Statistics

The Science In The Mercury Report By Florida’s DEP — Guest Post By Willie Soon

Our friend Willie Soon wrote this editorial in response to this letter from the Florida DEP. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is here. As a scientist who has spent…

Statistics

The Difference Between Technical And Plain English Correlation

Since the subject has come up so often, today a note on the words correlated and correlation. They have technical definitions and plain English meanings. The two definitions overlap but…

Fun Philosophy Statistics

Gloom, Despair, Email Spoofing, And Kahan’s Science Literacy Paper

Somebody spoofed my Yahoo email address which I use for ordering, registrations and the like. Sent hundreds of emails to my contact list yesterday. Now I ordinarily run Linux, which…

Fun Statistics

Astrologers See Obama Victory

Alas, our great nation is in retrograde, with the House of Koalemos (Greek god of stupidity) rising, ever rising. Dark cosmic forces have aligned---perhaps maligned is a better way to…

Maypo on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
Wow, (re)reading a TOFian essay makes it so blasted plain how much I miss the man. May he rest in…
hudbwu on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
> If I were God, and loved rational creatures, I would make myriad rational species; He should come back in…
NLR on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
What gets me about these kind of arguments is that they presuppose too much. People will have extensive debates about…
Briggs on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
Cary, You have read incompletely. God is a necessary being, else there could be no world. That is the classical…
Cary Cotterman on The If I Were God Fallacy & EvolutionJuly 29, 2025
"I, a man of 10,000, 5,000, or 2,000 years ago, cannot see how the world functions, therefore I posit (invent)…