August 2012 – Page 2 – William M. Briggs

The Tyranny of Artistic Modernism: Ugly Buildings, Ugly Paintings, Ugly Words, Ugly Life

Title before the colon taken from by Mark Anthony Signorelli and Nikos A. Salingaros's piece at New English Review. No real post today, just quotes from an article which is…

Statistics

A Peculiar Prevalence Of P Values Just Below .05

Today's title is lifted directly from the paper of E. J. Masicampo & Daniel R. Lalande, published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. The paper is here, and is…

Book review Philosophy

Reasoning To Belief: Feser’s The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism — Interlude: Empiricism Is False

Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part Interlude, Part IV, Part V, Part VI. Part Last. In going through Feser's book, many in the comments profess to be confused…

Book review Philosophy

Reasoning To Belief: Feser’s The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism — Part III

First Things First Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part Interlude, Part IV, Part V, Part VI. Part Last. There is only one truth, and everybody must operate by…

Statistics

Stressed Men Prefer Chubby Chicks

Here's a title for you, "BMI Not WHR Modulates BOLD fMRI Responses in a Sub-Cortical Reward Network When Participants Judge the Attractiveness of Human Female Bodies." How about that? I…

Fun

Psychic Cleaners, Emails, & Dialogue

This is a somewhat famous sign on the royal road in Mountain View, California. To economize, the sign is shared by a gypsy and a dry cleaners. I passed by…

Book review Philosophy

Reasoning To Belief: Feserâ€™s The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism — Part II

Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part Interlude, Part IV, Part V, Part VI. Part Last. Act and Potential TLS is not a complete work of theology or philosophy,…

Culture Statistics

USA Homicide Rates: 1950-2010; By Race And Sex

How has the homicide rate changed through time? The Bureau of Justice Statistics of our great government compiles statistics on just this kind of thing. This data arises from the…

hudbwu on Confirmation Bias In The Minneapolis ShootingJanuary 13, 2026
So we're just not going to talk about the three shots?
Cary D Cotterman on Confirmation Bias In The Minneapolis ShootingJanuary 13, 2026
No news source is perfect. Fox openly owns their conservative point of view. NPR lies about being unbiased. Even with…
Randy Middleton on Confirmation Bias In The Minneapolis ShootingJanuary 13, 2026
I saw this exact quote posted in a blog post from someone else. Captain: What we've got here is... failure…
Tars Tarkas on Confirmation Bias In The Minneapolis ShootingJanuary 13, 2026
"(I have in the queue a story on confirmation bias of academic Experts that confirms my bias that academic Experts…
Stan on Confirmation Bias In The Minneapolis ShootingJanuary 13, 2026
Around 2013, I obtained all death certificate data from the state of California for the years 2000-2012. I posted on…