Posted inCulture
The Etiquette Of Hats (For Men)
The giants, and also the midgets, of fashion are chirruping that "Hats are backs!" These fine people, who are ever discovering new ways of cladding themselves in black, are wrong.…
Posted inStatistics
The Gold Standard Of Experimentation Exposed As Pyrite
Everybody says the "gold standard" of experimentation, and especially clinical trials, is the randomized controlled trial. A typical view is that "A Randomized Controlled Trial is an experiment or study…
Posted inFun
What I Did On My Summer Vacation
The highlight was the Polish Festival in Boyne Falls, which featured a beer tent at which was served only Budweiser, hot dogs that were labeled "kielbasa", golabki covered in tomato…
Posted inStatistics
Epidemiology, Causality, And P-Values: Part II
Be sure to read yesterday's post first. One of the screwy consequences of classical statistics is that my odd sample (mixing babies and the patients from the brain cancer ward)…
Posted inStatistics
Epidemiology, Causality, And P-Values: Part I
A standard epidemiological study goes like this: people who have been "exposed" to some thing, say, cell phone radiation, are examined to discover whether or not they have some malady.…
Posted inCulture
What The Sale of Barnes and Nobel Means To Reading
Not too long ago, on the outdoor-shopping-mall-like 86th street in New York City---chain stores everywhere---Barnes and Noble opened a new store. Enormous, wide aisled (a rarity for stores in the…
Posted inCulture
California Judge Reverses Prop 8: A Right To Marriage?
A judge in California has, as we have all heard, struck down the publicly created law which bans two-person, same-sex marriage. This was no surprise, as most expected that this…
Posted inPhilosophy
Shermer Tries, And Fails, To Take Down Chopra
Aurora last night masked by clouds. Saw plenty of bats. Here is a review of another article you might like to read. Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, tried to…
