Posted inStatistics
Don’t Say “Natural Variability”
Word that the climate of doom we were promised (repeatedly) has not obtained has begun leaking out. Climatologists have known this for quite some time, but now even environmental activists…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
The True Meaning Of Statistical Models
This came up yesterday (again, as it does often), so I figure one more stab is in order. Because the answer isn't simple, I had to write a lot, which…
Posted inStatistics
How Good Is That Model? Scoring Rules For Forecasts: Part II: Update
Read Part I Part II What we're after is a score that calculates how close a prediction is to its eventual observation when the prediction is a probability. Now there…
Posted inPhilosophy
Question Of The Week: Will Religions Try to Convert Superintelligent AI? No
The ever hopeful transhumanist-but-still-human Zoltan Istvan is back asking "When Superintelligent AI Arrives, Will Religions Try to Convert It?" The answer is a qualified no. The qualification? There won't be…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
On Nate Silver’s Predictions: Which Side Of The Probability Equation Are We On?
When I checked FiveThirtyEight.com's Senate prediction, it said "Republicans have a 72.3% chance of winning a majority." There were also words that the "probability that each party will win control…
Posted inStatistics
Predicting Doom—Guest Post by Thomas Galli
I am not a statistics wizard; an engineer, I value the predictive power of statistics. Indeed, if one can precisely control variables in the design of an experiment, statistics-based prediction…
Posted inStatistics
Lovejoy’s New Attempt To Show We Are Doomed Does Not Convince
We last met Shaun Lovejoy when he claimed that mankind caused global temperatures to increase. At the 99.9% level, of course. He's now saying that the increase which wasn't observed…
Posted inStatistics
We Know The Climate Is Warming Because It Isn’t
What do you call the mental process which allows a man to say "What's firmly established is that the climate is warming" while also holding that "There's been a burst…
