William M. Briggs

The strange insignificance of statistical significance

Who is more likely to support the death penalty: college undergraduates from a "nationally-ranked Midwestern university with an enrollment of slightly more than 20,000" majoring in social work, or those…

Statistics

Hannah Arendt on global warming theory

...there are, indeed, few things that are more frightening than the steadily increasing prestige of scientifically minded brain trusters in the councils of government during the last decades. The trouble…

Fun

A Return to Seriousness: 7 Best Songs About Beer; Or, God Bless the Pope

Update: the embeddings have been shifted to links, because the embeddings were eating up too much memory on some people's browsers. 7 John Lee Hooker/George Thorogood, One Bourbon, One Scotch,…

Philosophy

Randomness isn’t in charge of anything: the “hot hand” in basketball

The Wall Street Journal is helping Leonard Mlodinow tout his book The Drunkardâ€™s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. Among other things, Mlodinow, like academics Tversky, Kahneman, and Gilovich before…

Fun

Internet Advertising Company to Fund Itself With Advertising

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Internet Advertising Company to Fund Itself With Advertising New York - July 4, 2009 - Word leader in being a new company engaged in ways of bringing…

Book review

Public Enemies — by Bryan Burrough

I am re-posting this book review because the movie came out today, and it might be of interest. Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI,…

Statistics

The MIT Dahn Yoga Brain Respiration Experiment: Part I

This series originally begin 3 January 2009. This is only Part I; the remaining parts are linked below. INTRODUCTION On 20 September 2004, in the Physics Department at MIT, sponsored…

Statistics

Paul Krugman drags out the “T” word again

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is calling for the heads of "deniers" again. In his "Betraying the Planet", he says that anybody who doesn't agree with his understanding on…

Tars Tarkas on The Great Effeminization of the AcademyMarch 18, 2026
I miss Z-man's Xirl Science segments in the Z-Man power hour. He would highlight articles like the ones highlighted here.…
McChuck on The Great Effeminization of the AcademyMarch 18, 2026
The number of women who have earned doctoral degrees, as opposed to having been granted them, is probably in the…
Sid Porter on The Great Effeminization of the AcademyMarch 18, 2026
Then, let’s consider doing the sports arenas…
C-Marie on The Only Metric That Matters: Or, Pinker’s FollyMarch 17, 2026
FOR CERTAIN, JOHNNO, JESUS IS LORD, AND NO OTHER!!! GOD BLESS, C-MARIE
Johnno on The Only Metric That Matters: Or, Pinker’s FollyMarch 17, 2026
"“How many souls make it to Heaven” is an attribute that can’t be expressed with variable data." We can at…

William M. Briggs

The Great Effeminization of the Academy

The Only Metric That Matters: Or, Pinker’s Folly

Lancet Discovers Public Health Is Politics

Class 82: Be More Uncertain (About Models)

On Not Reading

The Great Smoothing: Another Reason Not To Fear (or trust) AI

A Synchronicity Or Coincidence? What Is Behind Curious Events?

Class 81: The Second Biggest Error In Time Series

The Paper Test Shows Why AGI Is Not Possible: And Why The Brain Is Different In Kind

Researcher Imagines Weather With No Human Influence: Concludes Climate Change Hurts Incomes

Faith Deposited: Why Godless Science Fails

Class 80: Granger Causality; Per Se & Accidental Time Series; Stationarity

Scientists Seeking To Escape Criticism Run To The Warmth & Comfort Of Bluesky

The Loss of Ephemera — Guest Post by The Blonde Bombshell

Class 79: Time Series Example

The Importance Of Not Making Decisions

Don’t Take The ‘Long-Covid’ Alzheimer’s Study Seriously

AI Is Driving Many Crazy: Our Latest Panic

Class 78: The Attempt To Turn Correlation Lead Into Causation Gold In Time Series

Desperate Need For Equality: AP Exam Performance

Some Sanity: Experts Sued For Creating Gender Delusions

The Great Effeminization of the Academy

The Only Metric That Matters: Or, Pinker’s Folly

The strange insignificance of statistical significance

Hannah Arendt on global warming theory

A Return to Seriousness: 7 Best Songs About Beer; Or, God Bless the Pope

Randomness isn’t in charge of anything: the “hot hand” in basketball

Internet Advertising Company to Fund Itself With Advertising

Public Enemies — by Bryan Burrough

The MIT Dahn Yoga Brain Respiration Experiment: Part I

Paul Krugman drags out the “T” word again

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