How to gamble if you must

Our title comes from a famous paper by Lester Dubbins and Leonard Savage which appeared at the beginning of the Bayesian Theoretical Resurgence, a movement which, I am delighted to…

Never too old to learn

I'm at Cornell, teaching my now-annual statistics course to a group who have come up from the city and are there enrolled in a Masters program. Cornell requires students to…

On tolerance

Conversation was thick at the Cigar Inn today. Mostly over lunatic James W. von Brunnm who walked into Washington, D.C.'s Holocaust museum and murdered guard Stephen T. Johns, who had…

The Noble Savage Altruistic Warrior

There is a charming myth among idealists that before industrialization and its accoutrements, such as patriarchy and pollution, mankind lived an entirely peaceful existence. That is, there was no war.…

Shocking Shockley

This week's Science (29 May edition) has an unintentionally hilarious short piece. Seems Auburn, California wanted to name a park after local-boy-done-good William Shockley, the guy who invented the transistor.…