Briggs

You Can’t Get Something From Nothing: The Experience of God, Part II

Read Part I You can't get there from here It's difficult, thus far impossible, to get Enlightened persons to understand nothing. Lord knows it's been tried. Some physicists---Larry Krauss, Vic…

Culture Fun Statistics

Best Picture Oscar Winner: Model Prediction

For several years I have been predicting (with perfect accuracy) the best picture Oscar. (See this and this for past years.) The "model" pick for this year is Captain Phillips.…

Philosophy Statistics

Why You Should Care About The Philosophy Of Probability & Statistics

"Why, Dr Briggs," asks the earnest Student, "Why must we study all this gobbledegook about philosophy when it's more important to learn all the neat methods of handling data? Why…

Book review Philosophy

Which God Are You Rejecting? David Bentley Hart’s The Experience of God, Part I

The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss by David Bentley Hart. A good joke A joke which many atheists think clever goes like this: (speaking to a theist) "You reject…

Statistics

Update On The On-line Probability & Statistics Course. Comments Wanted

It's been a while, but I think I've finally figured out how to make an on-line class work. Details about this will be forthcoming, but for now I wanted to…

Culture Statistics

Prosecute Global Warming Heretics. Update 2: Kill, Nuremberg Them, Too!

Prosecute the heretics! is the new cry from the high priests of global warming. Climate "deniers", they say, are no better than mobsters, good fellas who are extorting the climate,…

Philosophy Statistics

The Mysticism Of Randomness: Philosophy of Probability & Statistics Video Series

Nothing can be caused by "chance". Chance, like randomness, isn't a thing, it isn't real, it isn't physical, therefore it cannot cause anything. Randomness means "unknown." Therefore "random variables" are…

Culture

From Latin & Greek To Remedial English

From Twitter's @LeMarquand came this picture: An overstatement, sure. Not every high school went in for amo, amas, amat or saw students parsing snatches of The Odyssey in the original.…

Briggs on On The Form Of Species: ‘Dance To The Tune Of Life’ by Denis Noble ReviewedDecember 17, 2025
Rhetocrates, Quite right.
Rhetocrates on On The Form Of Species: ‘Dance To The Tune Of Life’ by Denis Noble ReviewedDecember 16, 2025
I haven't finished the whole thing, but I'd like to flag one thing that may cause confusion to readers, though…
John Pate on On The Form Of Species: ‘Dance To The Tune Of Life’ by Denis Noble ReviewedDecember 16, 2025
Referring to my previous comment, it's nature via nurture. In any complex system transferring the plans to the finished item…
NLR on On The Form Of Species: ‘Dance To The Tune Of Life’ by Denis Noble ReviewedDecember 16, 2025
It sounds like Noble has some good points. People are increasingly recognizing problems with reductionism. For instance, saying that things…
Bobby Dress on How To Tell How Much Of “IQ” Is Inherited & How Much Is EnvironmentDecember 15, 2025
I’m fairly certain that obtaining my degree from Cornell had the unintended consequence of lowering whatever theoretical IQ I might…