Statistics – Page 255 – 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…

Eyrie on On Not ReadingMarch 11, 2026
Yep, finding the same thing. Unfortunately many of the good authors have died. We lost Michael F Flynn a couple…
BDavi52 on On Not ReadingMarch 11, 2026
Definitely not you. Writing has changed, or if not writing, publishing has changed. It seems obvious that written works are…
John M on On Not ReadingMarch 11, 2026
I'm with you Briggs. I'm a Jack London, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Louis L'Amour reader. The nice thing is my…
Rudolph Harrier on On Not ReadingMarch 11, 2026
Even most mass market paperbacks aren't really the "pocket paperbacks" of old. Either because they are too large or (more…
Cary D Cotterman on On Not ReadingMarch 11, 2026
I'm at least your age, probably older, and I read both novels and non fiction constantly. I've made the mistake…