Statistics – Page 201 – William M. Briggs

Researchers Invent Exciting New Disease: Poverty Blindness

There must soon come a day at The Onion, the satirical newspaper, when the editors will gather in bewilderment and say to each other, "Fellas, there's no use. The real…

Statistics

Scientists Discover Men Enjoy Looking At Women’s Breasts.

Regular readers will recall there are two main kinds of bad statistics. First is when the technique has been done wrong or is misapplied. Errors of this kind comprise only…

Philosophy Statistics

What Statistics Really Is: Part II

Read Part I, Part Paradox I claimed, and it is true, that all statistical problems could be written $latex \Pr(p|q)$, where p is a proposition of interest and q is…

Philosophy Statistics

What Statistics Really Is: Paradox Digression

Read Part I We're taking a small digression to answer a question put by Deborah Mayo in Part I, pointing to this article on her site. Mayo should be on…

Philosophy Statistics

What Statistics Really Is: Part I

It's so simple that you'll think I'm kidding. Worse, the way I'll show it is such a radical departure from the manner in which you're used to thinking about probability…

Statistics

Statistics Talk: Chances Are You’re Doing It Wrong

The problem with statistics is the astonishing amount of magical thinking tolerated. A statistician---or his apprentice; this means you---waving a formula over a dataset is little different than an alchemist…

Philosophy Statistics

What Scientific Idea Is Ready For Retirement? Hypothesis Tests

Edge asked a whopping number of named persons which ideas are ready to be expunged from the thing that is Science. Somehow my invitation got lost in the aether, an…

Culture Philosophy Statistics

Malthus’ Proof That Welfare Leads To Increasing Need For Welfare

First person that giggles at my hand drawings gets a mean look. My computing facilities are somewhat lacking... This of course is only a cartoon, but a helpful one of…

gareth on Class 73: How To Tell If You Have Bad DiceDecember 8, 2025
Well, having made it all the way through, my takeaways were: 1. The answer to the question, "what is the…
NLR on The Biggest Mistake In Science Applied To Universe As SimulationDecember 8, 2025
It can't be simulations all the way down because a simulation needs an underlying reality to simulate. But also, in…
McChuck on The Biggest Mistake In Science Applied To Universe As SimulationDecember 8, 2025
There is only one reality. Our perceptions of it may differ. Reality is real. The map is not the territory.…
JH on Class 72: Most Claims Of “Controlled For” Are Wrong: The Wrong WayDecember 8, 2025
Adding a constant of 200 to the equation will not eliminate the so-called probability leakage, which is essentially a result…
JH on Class 73: How To Tell If You Have Bad DiceDecember 8, 2025
With m = (1,2,3,4,5,6) x 10, and a = 0.02, then Pr(E_b|mB) = 0.99998. So the weird m would indeed…