Statistics – Page 214 – William M. Briggs

What That Spurious Correlation Website Tells Us About Statistics

Many (thanks!) readers sent links to Tyler Vigen's Spurious Correlations, whose motto is "Discover a new correlation - an interesting spurious correlation each day!" My favorite is tying the yearly…

Fun Statistics

Godzilla’s Changing Height: A Statistical Analysis

I grew up watching Channel 50's Creature Feature and Channel 7's 4 pm Monster Week movies, many of which featured Ultraman, Rodan, Gamera, Gargantua, and, of course, Godzilla. Too, I…

Philosophy Statistics

Frequentists Are Closet Bayesians: Confidence Interval Edition

Actually, all frequentists and Bayesians are logical probabilists, but if I put that in the title, few would believe it. A man might call himself an Anti-Gravitational Theorist, a science…

Statistics

William M. Briggs Sez: Keep That Impressive Middle Initial

You can take it from William M. Briggs, and also from the Today show: sporting a middle initial is a mark of sophistication, intelligence, and rugged manliness---or womanliness, as the…

Statistics

Researchers: Calling Girls Fat Makes Them Fat

Whatever you do, don't call somebody a "researcher". It could condemn them to a nasty, brutish, and short-tempered life. The kind where most of their time is spent scrambling for…

Statistics

Time Series And Causality: Global Warming Example

Temperature causes Here is an atmospheric monthly average temperature series: T = (61, 69, 69, 70, 72, 65, 63) (all F). What caused the temperature to take the value T1…

Statistics

Time Series Aren’t Easy: Tornado Deaths Example

Time series are the most abused statistics in the physical sciences. (It's an endless, raucous, peer-reviewed contest for the worst in the "soft sciences.") The Mann problem (is that a…

Philosophy Statistics

Physical Probability Doesn’t Exist

There have been many attempts to tie probability to physical chance. Here, briefly and for discussion, is why I think all of them fail. Ontology does not recapitulate epistemology Let…

Briggs on Class 95: Answering P-Value Good Uses ChallengesNovember 8, 2026
Brett, Yes, I accept this correction. You're quite right. I let my enthusiasm get the better of me. I'll change.
Brett Watson on Class 95: Answering P-Value Good Uses ChallengesNovember 8, 2026
"The conclusion given these premises (a phrase which I ought to write in ten foot high letters) is FALSE." No.…
Francois Stallbom on Book Update: Launch DateNovember 7, 2026
Cant wait! Just finished reading book one for the second time with great enjoyment.
Briggs on The Solution To EvolutionNovember 7, 2026
Gareth, Switch to the Brave browser. You will thank me. No ads. Been using it for years.
gareth on The Solution To EvolutionNovember 7, 2026
Read the post. Interesting. Tried to watch the YT video linked. Riddled with adds. Not interested.