Statistics – Page 273 – William M. Briggs

Geo-engineering The Climate: Durban Global Warming Conference

A group of scientists, funded generously by Big Green, which includes the Environmental Defense Fund, have released a report to coincide with the efforts of the Durban Global Warming Conference,…

Fun Statistics

Are Experts Better At Predicting Sports Than Ordinary Fans?

Today's post is over at the new and, yes, improved Edgehogs.com. Our launch was a couple of months ago. Since that time we've got a good chunk of games and…

Statistics

What Is A True Model? What Makes A Good One?: Part VI Climate Model Focus

This is a technical addendum to the main series. I would have skipped this, but Climategate 2.0 revealed many misapprehensions of verification statistics that I want to clear up, particularly…

Philosophy Statistics

What Is A True Model? What Makes A Good One?: Part V

We have in our hands (via the predictive posterior) the probabilities that Susy's GPA is less than any number between 0 and 4, given that we accept the normal model…

Philosophy Statistics

What Is A True Model? What Makes A Good One?: Part IV

In Part I we had the simplest kind of model. We complicated it in Part II, built more structure in Part III, and today finally come to the most used…

Philosophy Statistics

What Is A True Model? What Makes A Good One?: Part III

We have had two cases so far: arbitrary models for counterfactual Martians (Part I) and a deduced model for an urn holding dichotomous objects (Part II). The logic was identical…

Philosophy Statistics

What Is A True Model? What Makes A Good One?: Part II

The models in Part I might not have "felt right" to you. But if that is so it is because your diet of probability examples has been too narrowly constricted.…

Philosophy Statistics

What Is A True Model? What Makes A Good One?: Part I

The rules of logic are simple. Use whatever evidence you have, and no other, to figure the probability of a conclusion. These rules are all we need to understand what…

Brian (bulaoren) on Academics Call For The Killing Of Babies In “After-Birth” AbortionsSeptember 30, 2026
That fatalistic sense of humor will come in handy today.
Brian (bulaoren) on Academics Call For The Killing Of Babies In “After-Birth” AbortionsSeptember 30, 2026
My old friend Nat Plotkin, had a joke about the Jewish position on abortion; "The fetus becomes a human being…
Philip Rogan on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 29, 2026
Effective Altruism is something else I've never hard of but apparently has been infecting academic circles for decades. I took…
John M on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 29, 2026
Thanks for reminding me of that classic Klingon joke!
Rob Potter on Irrational Rationalists: Effective Altruists & The Planet of the AntsSeptember 29, 2026
Asimov's robot stories are the best example that an artificial intelligence is not intelligence. They were a fabulous way for…