Statistics – Page 278 – William M. Briggs

The Myth Of Killer Mercury: Guest Post By Willie Soon & Paul Driessen

Willie Soon has graciously allowed us to reprint his and Paul Driessen's editorial that ran in the 25 May 2011 Wall Street Journal. Dr Soon received double our normal rate…

Culture Statistics

India Aborting Girls At Full Speed: Sex Selection And Demographics

Science is great. It---"it" is always an it, an invisible entity, a guiding sapience, an intelligence that can be looked to for guidance---can now us tell the sex of a…

Philosophy Statistics

The Trolley Problem And Experimental Philosophy

The Trolley Problem, as given by Eric Schwitzgebel (as part of a larger survey): You are standing by the railroad tracks when you notice an empty boxcar rolling out of…

Culture Statistics

Wishcasting The End Of The World: Update

Wishcasting is when a forecast or prediction is shaded in the direction the forecaster or predictor wants the event to happen. For example, if you forecast this weekend's weather, you…

Statistics

Can Telomeres Predict How Long You Will Live?

No, they can't. Not exactly, and perhaps not with sufficient precision to be useful to you. But there is a new company called Life Length who will sell you, for…

Philosophy Statistics

Belief In God “Rooted” In Human Nature Say Academics

New research has shown---and by "research" I mean a fact long known to citizens is revealed to academics who attach a p-value to it and publish it---"that suggests that religion…

Culture Statistics

Food Deserts: Millions Of Californians Starving Themselves Into Obesity

The blubber is flowing in California. So says that State's venerable University, Los Angeles division. It's an epidemic! Both excessive fatness "increased significantly in just six years". This isn't the…

Philosophy Statistics

“I Can See The Future!”

The future begins tomorrow. This being so, it doesn't seem especially difficult to say what will happen in that uncertain land. Weathermen, and their noble sisters the weatherwomen, daily dispatch…

gareth on Class 87: Calibration & Conformal Prediction: ExamplesApril 29, 2026
Timestamp 21:35: A "correction" from 0.8 to 1.0 is a "correction factor" of 1.25, not 0.2 (akshully wot you mean…
Cato on The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising AnswerApril 29, 2026
There’s no point to a world without me; of course I press Red.
Brian (bulaoren) on The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising AnswerApril 29, 2026
I think that pessimism morphs into cynicism when we perceive personal gain in our bleak expectations.
Nate on The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising AnswerApril 29, 2026
The best explanation I saw on twitter was this rephrasing: "There is a blender. Jumping into the blender will kill…
Nate on The Red-Blue Button Dilemma & Its Surprising AnswerApril 29, 2026
I rephrased the question to remove "red" and "blue" priming words and asked the wife: "Space aliens create two buttons,…