The Future of Everything by David Orrell. Thunder’s Mouth Press, New York. I wanted to like this book, which was supposed to be an examination of how well scientists made predictions—my special […]
You cannot measure a mean
I often say—it is even the main theme of this blog—that people are too certain. This is especially true when people report results from classical statistics, or use classical methods when implementing […]
U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Skeptical Climate Scientists
The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works has released an addendum to its list of 400-plus scientists who express some level of skepticism about man-made global warming. I highlight this […]
It depends what the meaning of mean means.
Yesterday’s post was entitled, “You cannot measure a mean”, which is both true and false depending—thanks to Bill Clinton for the never-ending stream of satire—on what the meaning of mean means. The […]
New York Times debate on AGU statement
The American Geophysical Union, of which I am a member, has, like many other organizations, e.g. the ASA, issued a statement concurring with the IPCC report. The text of that statement is […]
AMS conference report: day 3
More on hurricanes today. Jim Elsner, with co-author Tom Jagger, both from Florida State University started off by warning against using naive statistical methods on count data, such as hurricanes. Especially don’t […]
Can having a mammogram kill you? How to make decisions under uncertainty.
The answer to the headline is, unfortunately, yes. The Sunday, 10 February 2008 New York Post reported this sad case of a woman at Mercy Medical Center in New York City. The […]
What can we learn about global warming from poor reporting?
From today’s Syndney Morning Herald comes the headline: “Global warming to impact health“. First, by impact the reporter almost certainly means influence, a more accurate, but far less energetic and “actionable”, word. […]
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