Posted inPhilosophy
David Stove: Annotated List of Books
If you have not yet done so, I want you to read David Stove, one of the best philosophers of the twentieth century, a man who wrote with such clarity…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Replacements for Representation: Bayes From the Ground Up
A primary justification for Bayesian probability is De Finetti's representation theorem, which is stated like this. You are to observe a sequence of 0s and 1s, "failures" and "successes" if…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
The Two-Envelope Problem Solution: Part II
Read Part I first. We are in the peek first game here. The distribution of N When X is odd, and all X are discrete, we know we should always…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
The Two-Envelope Problem Solution: Part I
Another probability "paradox", the two-envelope problem1, goes like this: Before you are two envelopes, A and B. One of them contains $X and the other $2X (which is equivalent to…
Posted inStatistics
St Petersburg Paradox; Games and Statistical Decisions; RIP David Blackwell
David Blackwell, who died two weeks ago, was one of the first mainstream statisticians to "go Bayesian." And for that and his unique skill in clearly explaining difficult ideas, we…
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 inFun Statistics
The Predictive Skills of Octopii: Paul’s World Cup Prognostications
In Detroit, for that glorious game of soccer-on-ice-with-sticks, we---I still say "we"; you can never separate yourself from your birthplace---know what to do with octopuses, octopii as were: We toss…
Posted inStatistics
Lady Wins Fourth Lottery: What Are the Odds?
I'm in the wild blue yonder today; so here is a distraction. Thanks to reader Jade for suggesting the topic. Nobody can scratch better than Las Vegas resident Joan Ginther,…