2014 – Page 22 – William M. Briggs

Summary Against Modern Thought: Potency, Actuality, & Movement

See the first post in this series for an explanation and guide of our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles. Previous post. Last time we only proved one premise, that some…

Statistics

Class Report: How Not To Teach Statistics

It's over. Two solid weeks of 9 to 5 to 9 and beyond statistics. Plus a few cocktails and cookouts and camaraderie. I'm exhausted. The students are mostly later early…

Culture Philosophy

From Paganism To Christianity To Deism To Malleism

Pagans---the word is not an insult---believed that God was immanent. If you've seen Star Wars, you have it. "The Force" was God, and The Force was everything. To quote that…

Culture Statistics

Casual Sex Is Good for You, Says New Biased Study

In a ridiculously biased "study", a researcher has shown that some college students who self-select to participate in a study of "causal" sex and who say they like having "casual"…

Philosophy Statistics

Probabilities Aren’t Decisions

The title says it all. But its presence implies, and it is true, that people often mistake the two. If you decide to bet fifty bucks the USA beats Germany,…

Philosophy Statistics

The Biggest Error In Regression

I know, I know: we're sick to death of regression, but we have to cover the biggest error, which is how the Deadly Sin of Reification happens. You have a…

Philosophy Statistics

Free Will The Result Of ‘Background Noise’?

Once again the lack of metaphysical training has led some scientists to say an incredibly silly thing. That free will "could be the result of 'background noise' in the brain."…

Culture

Final Proof Global Warming Purely Political

Regular readers will have expected the next installment in our tour of Summa Contra Gentiles. This will appear next week after my class is over. I may say that the…

Greg Ostman on New Paper Says Flu Vax Increases Chance Of Flu: Let’s LookMay 14, 2025
All Astro physics to me but how about just take the numbers of vaxed and unvaxed then see how many…
Paul Murphy on The Nuances and Challenges of Federal Funding for Research — Guest Post by An AcademicMay 14, 2025
Wow, what is that the naive outsider's view? In reality: 1 - you don't get tenure unless your name is…
cdquarles on The Nuances and Challenges of Federal Funding for Research — Guest Post by An AcademicMay 14, 2025
It is laughable that the premise that "commercial" funding of research is corrupting, but government funding isn't. What was that…
cdquarles on Eggs and ‘PFAS-Easter’ or Selling Fear on the Day of Resurrection — Guest Post by Jaap HanekampMay 14, 2025
Bingo, SSG Briggs. List for me, in order of mass with the most mass first, all of the chemicals in…
hudbwu on Academics Call Pregnancy A DiseaseMay 13, 2025
A moment of silence for all the pain and suffering Briggs endured to bring us this comedic piece. Trully, greatest…