Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Mexican Hat Fallacy
Reader Kip Hansen asks, "Can you please run a brief explanation of what the Mexican Hat fallacy is statistically?" I can. The Mexican Hat Fallacy, or Falacia Sombrero, is when…
Posted inStatistics
Data Mining, PRISM, NSA & False Positives: Update
Remember how---this is a really brief history lesson--remember how the NSA, CIA, FBI, and many other of those lettered agencies with their ever-increasing budgets, super-sophisticated computers, genius brain mathematicians, statisticians,…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
There Is Only One Kind Of Probability: An Answer To Senn; Part II
Read Part I. Some of this material is explained in detail in this series. Just after the introduction, Senn starts his argument by claiming an "important distinction between two types…
Posted inCulture
Obesity Is Now A “Disease”
No surprise that diseases are political. What are we marching "against" this week? Never mind. What you might not have known is that how the word is applied is decided…
Posted inStatistics
The Final Polls & Predictions: What’s The Difference Between Polls And Models?
There are two ways to forecast the election: polls and models. Polls are easy: go out and ask who will vote for whom, tally the results, and print 'em. As…
Posted inStatistics
People Growing Dumber Or Research Growing Slacker?
If there was ever a paper which was in danger of refuting itself by its title, this is it. "Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence…
Posted inPhilosophy Statistics
Significance Magazine Announces Its Pro-Abortion Position
Significance Magazine waded into the culture wars by publishing "Deciding abortions by the toss of a coin?" by somebody called Michael A. Lewis. Here (in case the article is pulled)…
Posted inStatistics
The Epidemiologist Fallacy Strikes Again. EPA, CARB, And Air Pollution
Here is an email I received from Jim Enstrom of the Scientific Integrity Institute (modified to embed the links; incidentally, CARB is the California Air Resources Board, a source of…
