Search Results for “probability” – Page 5

Reader Question: Probability is not real in the sense that real life things are real

Anon writes: Mr. Briggs, I am trying to understand the statement in the title. It [probability] is a measure of uncertainty. It is a measure of what we know or…

Statistics

Top Scientists Plead For Someone To Calculate The Probability Of The End Of The World

Here's how the AP climate doom article starts: Experts are ignoring the worst possible climate change catastrophic scenarios, including collapse of society or the potential extinction of humans, however unlikely,…

Philosophy Statistics

Probability is Logic

I was reading a draft of a book our own Fr John Rickert's is working on. Visual Logic: Seeing Classical and Modern Logic: An Introduction, a neat little handbook showing…

Statistics

Proof Probability & Statistics & AI Don’t Discover Cause

Everybody has read, or seen adaptations of, Bram Stocker's documentation of Dracula, the undead count, unlate of Transylvania. From these pages and films, we all know how to kill a…

Statistics

Local & Necessary Truths In Mathematical Proofs — And Probability

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp06oGD4m00 This video requires little math beyond what used to be taught in college. Its speaker is Terry Tao, who some say is the world's best living mathematician. Its (fun---truly)…

Class Statistics

Probability Thought Experiment With NNT: Reader Question

From reader Ernst, this interesting probability/statistics question. First, NNT = number needed to treat, which is, stealing from this site to save time, "The Number Needed to Treat (NNT) is…

Statistics

On Cause In Probability Models

Note This post originally ran 11 June 2019 under the title "When Cause Is Not A Cause -- Another Anti-P-Value Argument". The post itself is extracted and modified from this…

Philosophy Statistics

Subjective Probability Is Objective

Because certain forms of Bayesian probability, particularly so-called subjective probability, are being taken up in quantum mechanics, it's well to understand just what subjective probability is, if it's anything, and…

R W Pearson on The HR Trilemma: Which Door Decides Your Fate?May 12, 2026
This is easy, go in the door he came out. Worse case only one young scold to give you a…
Mocheirge on The HR Trilemma: Which Door Decides Your Fate?May 12, 2026
I asked an AI, and it had the same answer as me but with silly Bayes equations. Then out of…
Johnno on Capital Punishment Deters Crime More Than The Death PenaltyMay 12, 2026
We should make it a law that whenever a criminal is sentened to death, that the only method to delay…
Mocheirge on The HR Trilemma: Which Door Decides Your Fate?May 12, 2026
Definitely pick the door that the Boomer just left. There are three Boomers, so the probability that the one you…
Cary D Cotterman on The HR Trilemma: Which Door Decides Your Fate?May 12, 2026
I don't know or have the patience for the math, or whatever it takes, to do this right. I figure…