Statistics – Page 263 – William M. Briggs

The Lady Tasting Tea: Bayes Versus Frequentism; Part II (update)

Read Part I: Again, the text (up to this part) has been corrected and expanded. Recall our overarching---our only---goal. We want to know whether the sweet old lady "has the…

Philosophy Statistics

The Lady Tasting Tea: Bayes Versus Frequentism; Part I (updated)

Since the subject arose yesterday, and for other reasons which I'll explain later, I thought we should revisit this series, which ran a year ago. I have edited and expanded…

Statistics

Dawkins On The Double-Blind Experiment

The Edge every year asks top science celebrities a penetrating, yet fun, always fun, question. Last year's was "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?" One of the correspondent…

Philosophy Statistics

Statement Of Teaching Philosophy

Regular readers will know that I have been searching for (continuous) employment as a teacher. Most colleges and universities ask applicants to supply "a statement of teaching philosophy", while a…

Philosophy Statistics

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,…

Cary Cotterman on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
Every day there's some paper or article claiming that something is good for you, followed the next day by some…
spetzer86 on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
Always fun watching the lectures.
JRob on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
The epidemiologist fallacies are always enjoyable. It seems that there is a rash of scientists now saying that previous scientists…
Tars Tarkas on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
"The unsweetened kids were born late 1951 to 1954, while the sugar-available kids were born after rationing ending in July…
McChuck on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
It's also not coincidental that the control group is, by the standards of the study, entirely younger than the test…