William M. Briggs

Every Family Has Children Until They Have A Boy: Probability Stumper

Reader Bryan Davies quoted a poser from Math Overflow (have we heard of that?) which read: In a country in which people only want boys every family continues to have…

Statistics

Scientists Claim Homosexual Men Have Different Faces

In the journal that brought you "Is a Woman's Preference for Chest Hair in Men Influenced by Parasite Threat?"1, "Accurate Identification of a Preference for Insertive Versus Receptive Intercourse from…

Fun Philosophy

What Do You Call Believer in Scientism? Contest

Toby Young at the Spectator ran this tweet yesterday: https://twitter.com/toadmeister/status/402545969956261888 The text (if you can't see) reads: "Is there a name for people who think reason and research evidence alone…

Philosophy Statistics

Observational Versus Controlled Trials

Received this email from a reader: I took on board all I read on your website, and it has created confusion in my mind. I have been reading Ioannidis and…

Philosophy

Dawkins Gets It Wrong Again: Similar Is Not The Same

Richard Dawkins in an article to the New Statesman---the same issue which somebody who obviously wasn't in full possession of his faculties assigned to Dawkins as editor---the Christmas issue, mind---an…

Statistics

We’re 88% Through The International Year Of Statistics

I hadn't any idea we'd even started. But thanks to reader Dan Hughes and his link to the Wall Street Journal story Odds Lot: Statisticians Party Like It's 2.013 x…

Statistics

Nonstatisticians Often Screw Up Statistics

Title stolen from article of same name by Leland Teschler in the trade journal Machine Design. Update Statisticians often screw up statistics, too. See below. The article is the result…

Statistics

Johnson’s Revised Standards For Statistical Evidence

Thanks to the many readers who sent me Johnson's paper, which is here (pdf). Those who haven't will want to read "Everything Wrong With P-values Under One Roof", the material…

patrivk healy on Ugly Women Rulers Condemn LookismAugust 14, 2026
C-Marie. Look around you. Virtually all the ugly woman who have corrupted the western world in the last 50 years…
Cary Cotterman on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
Every day there's some paper or article claiming that something is good for you, followed the next day by some…
spetzer86 on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
Always fun watching the lectures.
JRob on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
The epidemiologist fallacies are always enjoyable. It seems that there is a rash of scientists now saying that previous scientists…
Tars Tarkas on Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your MindAugust 13, 2026
"The unsweetened kids were born late 1951 to 1954, while the sugar-available kids were born after rationing ending in July…

William M. Briggs

Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your Mind

AI Is Neither Artificial Nor Intelligent

You Can’t Con An Honest Man & The Case of Jason Arday

Academics: Achieve Sustainability by Easing Population to 4 Billion by 2200

The Impossibility of Proposition Nations

Ugly Women Rulers Condemn Lookism

The Wee P Boogie: The Song That’s Sweeping the Nation!

Wolfgang Smith For Everyone

Death By Organ Donation

$7.11 at 7:11 PM on 7/11 at 7/11: What Are The Chances?

Caution Against The Precautionary Principle: Interview with Jaap Hanekamp

Believing In God Makes You Crave Potato Chips, Say Academics

Hume’s Guillotine, Euclid’s Catapult: Induction, Axioms, and Objective Ethics

University of California Prof Tries To Save System From DIEing

The Equality Paradox

My Horrible Interaction With AI

SOON

The Court’s Slow Theft Of The Constitution — Guest Post by Ianto Watt

Happy Birthday to US

Never Use Or Trust P-values (Pagan-Values)

Musk Doges Deaths: Researchers Say USAID Absence Kills Kills Kills!

Sweet Wee Ps Say Sugar Makes You Lose Your Mind

AI Is Neither Artificial Nor Intelligent

Every Family Has Children Until They Have A Boy: Probability Stumper

Scientists Claim Homosexual Men Have Different Faces

What Do You Call Believer in Scientism? Contest

Observational Versus Controlled Trials

Dawkins Gets It Wrong Again: Similar Is Not The Same

We’re 88% Through The International Year Of Statistics

Nonstatisticians Often Screw Up Statistics

Johnson’s Revised Standards For Statistical Evidence

There Is No Culture Without Inequality: Stove 1

Impose Your Beliefs Before They Impose Theirs

Telekinesis: Ideas In Our Reenchantment & Rectification

The Physics Of Blessings: Ideas In Our Reenchantment & Rectification