July 2009 – Page 2 – William M. Briggs

The sad decline of music: Cole Porter vs. The Beatles

Paul McCartney has once again crept upon our shores. He was, of course, vanguard in the original "British Invasion", which occurred in early 1964. Now, an invasion is something to…

Philosophy

The strange insignificance of statistical significance

Who is more likely to support the death penalty: college undergraduates from a "nationally-ranked Midwestern university with an enrollment of slightly more than 20,000" majoring in social work, or those…

Statistics

Hannah Arendt on global warming theory

...there are, indeed, few things that are more frightening than the steadily increasing prestige of scientifically minded brain trusters in the councils of government during the last decades. The trouble…

Fun

A Return to Seriousness: 7 Best Songs About Beer; Or, God Bless the Pope

Update: the embeddings have been shifted to links, because the embeddings were eating up too much memory on some people's browsers. 7 John Lee Hooker/George Thorogood, One Bourbon, One Scotch,…

Philosophy

Randomness isn’t in charge of anything: the “hot hand” in basketball

The Wall Street Journal is helping Leonard Mlodinow tout his book The Drunkardâ€™s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. Among other things, Mlodinow, like academics Tversky, Kahneman, and Gilovich before…

Fun

Internet Advertising Company to Fund Itself With Advertising

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Internet Advertising Company to Fund Itself With Advertising New York - July 4, 2009 - Word leader in being a new company engaged in ways of bringing…

Book review

Public Enemies — by Bryan Burrough

I am re-posting this book review because the movie came out today, and it might be of interest. Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI,…

Johnno on Nobody Believes Anything Based On “No Evidence”October 14, 2025
Fatima is believed not only for the weight of evidence in it's favor (it was also testfied to by hardened…
Lucy Tucker on Nobody Believes Anything Based On “No Evidence”October 14, 2025
Scidolator. I like it.
Cary Cotterman on Nobody Believes Anything Based On “No Evidence”October 14, 2025
Brad, I tend to fear, based on what I've been told by the religious, as well as what's in the…
brad.tittle on Nobody Believes Anything Based On “No Evidence”October 14, 2025
Science gives me all kinds of faith. When a leaf falls, the physics gives me a rough idea of what…
brad.tittle on Nobody Believes Anything Based On “No Evidence”October 14, 2025
This atheist is where he is largely because the term atheist keeps the religious zealots at bay. The proprietor of…