Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Teaching Journal: Day 7
The joke is old and hoary and so well known that I risk the reader's ire for repeating it. But it contains a damning truth. Most academic statistical studies are…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Teaching Journal: Day 6
(I'm assuming you have been reading previous posts. If not, do so.) We still want this: (1) Pr (Distance > 1 meter | normal with m and s specified)…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
2012 UEFA European Football Championship And What Probability Is
A pair of statisticians have calculated that, as of 10 June, the probability that Germany takes the 2012 Euro Cup is 26.8%. Russia, they say, comes in with the next…
Posted inFun Statistics
Worst Invention Of All Time?
Your help is urgently needed to decide what is the worst invention of all time. Any man-made item, and only man-made items, are eligible. Rocks, for instance, no matter to…
Posted inStatistics
The Difference Between Technical And Plain English Correlation
Since the subject has come up so often, today a note on the words correlated and correlation. They have technical definitions and plain English meanings. The two definitions overlap but…
Posted inStatistics
Believers Less Vindictive Than Godless Atheists: New Research
Vengeance Is Mine The actual title of the Live Science press release was "Believers Leave Punishment to Powerful God," a story which opens with the memorable words: Believing in an…
Posted inFun Statistics
Interest In On-Line Statistics Courses?
You might have heard what happened to when Stanford professor Andrew Ng put his machine learning (a practical kind of statistical modeling) on line. He expected mild interest. One hundred…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Scientific Truths Are Not Better Truths Than Just-Plain Truths
One of the key fallacies of scientism, in the sense of being the most destructive to common sense and personal wellbeing, is to suppose that any theory put forth in…