Statistics – Page 251 – 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…

Johnno on The Consent FallacyJanuary 7, 2026
Briggs, you FOOL! Even though I consented to reading this article by clicking on it, I have had regret and…
Johnno on Register Your Predictions For 2026!January 7, 2026
Alright, time to spread out the money... 1. EASY WEATHER PREDICTION: - A.I. and Cloud Data Centers continue to sky-rocket…
John Pate on The Consent FallacyJanuary 7, 2026
When I become King of England (I am no doubt the descendant of one of the bastard sons of Edward…
Uncle Mike on The Consent FallacyJanuary 7, 2026
Right and wrong are not "guidelines". Goodness, Truth, Beauty, and Love are ideals. We all fall short, the Law falls…
Brian (bulaoren) on The Consent FallacyJanuary 7, 2026
A few days ago, I watched. a re-run of "Leave it to Beaver". In it, Beaver felt quite humiliated when…