Statistics – Page 254 – William M. Briggs

Drug Companies Tweaking Results To Produce Publishable P-values?

A person who Nature is calling a "whistle blower" has written a brief confessional in the British Medical Journal admitting to what might be termed statistical fiddling at a "major"…

Philosophy Statistics

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…

CorkyAgain on The Equality ParadoxJuly 10, 2026
Somehow I'd missed that story about Schumer's grilling gaffe. Aside from not lighting the fire or putting cheese on a…
John Pate on The Equality ParadoxJuly 9, 2026
Maybe it wasn't considered safe for Schumer to be near an open flame, having no familiarity with the ordinary tasks…
Fubsy on My Horrible Interaction With AIJuly 9, 2026
Lol, I remember "Iron Eyes Cody," the spaghetti Indian!
Rudolph Harrier on My Horrible Interaction With AIJuly 9, 2026
I've also experienced that thing where it claims to not be able to do something it just did. I see…
Rudolph Harrier on My Horrible Interaction With AIJuly 9, 2026
A couple of things I have noticed about how LLMs have developed in the last year or so: 1.) Somehow…