Statistics – Page 247 – William M. Briggs

The Jeffreys-Lindley Paradox Isn’t

Background A paradox is a mistake in thinking; an artificial, human creation which usually arises because a conclusion which follows from a set of beloved premises is itself unloved. Twitter…

Culture Fun Statistics

Oscar Predictions: Money, Men, & Maturity Make The Difference

Last year, my number two son1 and I created a model to predict the Oscar winning movie (the original post, and the follow up). We found the following characteristics most…

Fun Statistics

Scratch-off Lottery Tickets: Expected Payouts, A Hidden Benefit?

Update See the comments, but thanks to readers' arguments I believe I was wrong in an essential calculation. I've reworked the text to correct my error, which was small in…

Philosophy Statistics

What Is Cause? — Guest Post by DAV

Regular readers will recognize DAV as a regular contributer whose humorous voice of reason has kept many conversations on target. Today he presents ideas to spur a discussion of causality,…

Statistics

Last Night’s Republican Debate

Off in service today, so only a brief word. Debate results: Romney had an easy base hit to center field, Gingrich doubled but with no men on base, Santorum hit…

Statistics

Heartlandgate Versus Climategate

There are some key differences between Climategate 1.0 and 2.0, where emails from scientists and their hangers on were leaked, and Heartlandgate (am I the first to use this appallingly…

Statistics

Heartland Documents Leaked, Massaged, Faked

First thing I did, after hearing that the Heartland Institute's budget was leaked, was to pore through it looking for my name in the hopes of seeing how much moola…

Statistics

Why Reconstructed Temperatures Via Proxies Are Misleading

This is an edited and expanded re-post from last September; it makes a natural and needed companion to last week's series on how to statistically handle temperature time series, particularly…

Leonard on In Which An Atheist Becomes Sputteringly Angry Over Theist’s ArgumentNovember 11, 2025
But who in their right mind turns to The Atlantic for scientific discussion??
Cary D Cotterman on Academics Debate Which Term Best Describes Those Who Love (in that way) Their PillowsNovember 10, 2025
Nuking seems like such an architectural waste. Would it be possible to just quickly and cleanly eliminate university-infesting life forms,…
Brian (bulaoren) on Academics Debate Which Term Best Describes Those Who Love (in that way) Their PillowsNovember 10, 2025
How long will it take for carnival rides to start complaining about being "objectified"?
Pk on Academics Debate Which Term Best Describes Those Who Love (in that way) Their PillowsNovember 10, 2025
The Gravity ride was introduced in 2015. What is the age of consent for an amusement park ride?
Rich on Academics Debate Which Term Best Describes Those Who Love (in that way) Their PillowsNovember 10, 2025
I'm presuming that "centrifugal logic" is reasoning that flees from sense.