October 2009 – Page 2 – William M. Briggs

Not Evil, Just Wrong reviewed: Guest Post by Bernie

Today's guest post is by our very own Bernie, longtime reader and contributer. Too confused and too nuanced to be effective Phelim McAleer's and Ann McElhinney's Not Evil, Just Wrong…

Statistics

Full Disclosure, Anita Dunn, and Fox News: A Fairness Proposal for Journalists

In the United States, we have several major news outlets. On television: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox. There are also several national-ish newspapers (and a diminishing number…

Statistics

Podcast Lecture #2: Understanding Statistics and Probability

[podcast]https://www.wmbriggs.com/audio/wmbriggs_com_lecture_0002.mp3[/podcast] On today's lecture: Quick review All knowledge is conditional on evidence, which eventually leads back to our intuitions. The steps in an argument that make it valid are also…

Podcast Statistics

Podcast Radio Show â€“ Episode #4: Belief in Climate Models

[podcast]https://www.wmbriggs.com/audio/wmbriggs_com_14oct2009_0004.mp3[/podcast] On today's episode: Science and skeptical bloggers A small article in last week's Science magazine frets that skeptical bloggers are teasing climate scientists over their failed predictions. Bloggers are…

Culture Fun

F train Blues, Michael Palin is proud, and some misuses of statistics

Just back from my trip. I'll go through the comments from last week's posts later today and catch up. Meanwhile, here are a few interesting stories. That F'ing train! You've…

Statistics

Podcast Lecture #1: Understanding Statistics and Probability

[podcast]https://www.wmbriggs.com/audio/wmbriggs_com_lecture_0001.mp3[/podcast] First lecture: I'm away to a conference this week, and so thought it would be fun to start a lecture series Understanding Statistics and Probability (this is posting automatically---I'll…

Culture Podcast

Podcast Radio Show – Episode #3: Call the Health Police!

[podcast]https://www.wmbriggs.com/audio/wmbriggs_com_07oct2009_0003.mp3[/podcast] On today's episode: What is health? Herr Mencken, the Sage of Baltimore: "a degree of adaptation to the organism's environment so nearly complete that there is no irritation." Health…

Culture

The Case of the Rape-rape Patrol: a 17th precinct mini-mystery

We last met Officer Hannigan and Sergeant Fitzgerald in The Case of the Missing Global Warming and The Age of Stupid "Sarge, we got a call." Officer Hannigan motioned to…

John Pate on Why Study Probability?November 17, 2025
Can't agree with Briggs on this, I agree with Tesla; "Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander…
Briggs on Why Study Probability?November 17, 2025
Willis, I have just about finished a brief answer to you (about 3,000 words), which because of the importance and…
John Pate on Why Study Probability?November 17, 2025
Eschenbach you're becoming a caricature of modern scientism. I've explained to you why your Aunt Sally is bogus and the…
Williis Eschenbach on Why Study Probability?November 16, 2025
John, I asked a THEORETICAL question. Pointing out that there are real-world options is MEANINGLESS to my question. How about…
John Pate on Why Study Probability?November 16, 2025
Eschenbach, card counting was arrived at by an empirically derived process. That's not the same as having bogus statistical theories…