Statistics – Page 302 – William M. Briggs

Feigned Surprises of the Week: Journolist and Our New Tax

Said the main-stream journalist on Journolist, "If they of the right wing don't behave and treat our Golden Boy properly, we'll call them racists. It matters not whom we pick…

Fun Statistics

A Bust—I mean must—Read; Or, An Evolution in Bra Sizes

"Excuse me, miss. Would you care to participate in science?" Sometimes being a statistician is enviable. In a flash of scientific brilliance, Australian statisticians have just completed a massive study…

Fun Statistics

M. Night Shyamalan, Mel Gibson, and John Wayne

Part II of the Two-Envelope problem was not too friendly, so here's something that is. Via HotAir, I came across the site Marginal Revolution, in which was featured a graph…

Philosophy Statistics

The Two-Envelope Problem Solution: Part II

Read Part I first. We are in the peek first game here. The distribution of N When X is odd, and all X are discrete, we know we should always…

Philosophy Statistics

The Two-Envelope Problem Solution: Part I

Another probability "paradox", the two-envelope problem1, goes like this: Before you are two envelopes, A and B. One of them contains $X and the other $2X (which is equivalent to…

Statistics

St Petersburg Paradox; Games and Statistical Decisions; RIP David Blackwell

David Blackwell, who died two weeks ago, was one of the first mainstream statisticians to "go Bayesian." And for that and his unique skill in clearly explaining difficult ideas, we…

Statistics

How to Fool Yourself—And Others—With Statistics

See the news box to the left. I wrote this long ago and never used it. I do not love it. But since I am so busy, I haven't the…

Statistics

US Military Fatality Statistics: Have Suicides Increased?

All statistics were gathered from this DOD site. 2010 numbers were current as of 5 June this year; they were not part of the plots below. In 1983, the year…

Brian ( bulaoren) on Lindsay Clancy Strangled Her Kids Because Of “Climate Change”September 8, 2026
Ps. When I saw "River's Edge", it reminded me of a, weirdly, morally ambiguous 1950s Hitchcock film (with Jerry "Beaver"…
Cary Cotterman on Lindsay Clancy Strangled Her Kids Because Of “Climate Change”September 8, 2026
As a child in the 1960s, I tended to get injured more often in warm months than in cold months,…
Brian (bulaoren) on Lindsay Clancy Strangled Her Kids Because Of “Climate Change”September 8, 2026
Today's subject seems a bit too warm to touch. Well, somebody has to break the ice (9?). I keep remembering…
Tars Tarkas on Lindsay Clancy Strangled Her Kids Because Of “Climate Change”September 8, 2026
"Our results suggest instead that child neglect is measurably responsive to high temperatures—parents are intentionally or unintentionally allowing their young…
gareth on Lewontin’s Other Fallacy: Race & IntelligenceSeptember 7, 2026
So, was there any actual plant bothering done? Or was this all "thought experiment"? It was not clear to me…