Posted inStatistics
How to Fool Yourself—And Others—With Statistics
See the news box to the left. I wrote this long ago and never used it. I do not love it. But since I am so busy, I haven't the…
Posted inStatistics
Last Class
It was the Nines last night. Pizza, beer, and wine, followed by sketchy music. A definite conceit of statistics is its habit of declaring with something-approaching-certainty that this or that…
Posted inStatistics
What Do You Really Want? Modern Statistics. Lesson n+2
Only a couple of days left, everybody. Then back to more interesting subjects. Incidentally: when is the best time to contact a statistician? Before you begin to collect data. You…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Lesson Somethingorother: Against the P-value
I've lost count of the lesson numbers. The definition of a p-value, here phrased in the incorrectly named "test of difference in means", is: Given the truth of a probability…
Posted inStatistics
Lesson Zero: Lecturing, Churchill, and End of the World
Teaching as Performance The class is two weeks of solid statistics. Eight hours a day weeks; save the weekends. I don't know about other instructors, but my technique is to…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Lesson Five or Six: Abnormality
Say! What happened to lessons three through four or five? Who knows. This morning, I'm dreadfully rushed, so just a sketch. I do not expect anybody to be convinced this…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Confidence Intervals, Logic, Induction
Induction "Because all the many flames observed before have been hot is a good reason to believe this flame will be hot" is an example of an inductive argument, and…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
The Science News Statistical Article: Odds Are, It’s Wrong
Many (thank you everybody!) people sent me the "Odds Are, It's Wrong" article by Tom Siegfried and have asked me to comment. Below are the key points; I will assume…