Becoming Superman - a review
I find it hard to overestimate the positive effect J. Michael Straczynski (or jms) has had on me. My first introduction to him was in the TV series Babylon 5 …
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Category: articles
Useful Fictions
People who externalize the creative influence with a genie or muse easily explain why they can be amazingly creative at one moment and be stuck in the next — the muse simply is not there. Given that humans are inherently story-driven beings there is some value in the short-hand of describing this "other" as an external agent, an effect outside of our immediate control.
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Happy Groundhog Day!
Happy Groundhog Day, tomorrow! Hope Phil's predictions are as good as ever! The data are summarized as:
- Sees his shadow - 103 (79.23%)
- Does not see his shadow - 18 (13 …
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Happy New Year (again)! A Time for New Beginnings (again)
As I have written before, I love the idea of New Year’s Day. It’s a time for reflection, contemplation, self improvement. I realize that it is technically just …
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Push Back Against Bayes
In his blog post about Bayes' theorem part 1 and part 2, John Loftus wrestles with the notion of prior probability and the application of Bayes' Theorem. His concern seems …
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Not all Extraordinary Claims are Equal
Although we may believe that a chick can be born inside a hen on weak testimonial evidence, we are not therefore justified to believe all other extraordinary claims on weak testimonial evidence.
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Do Skeptics Underestimate the Case for the Resurrection? Not so much.
As someone who is skeptical of the resurrection myself, I am not particularly impressed when someone finds it “extremely difficult to deal with as a critic”. It really isn’t all that hard.
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Does Art Lead Math? Not as far as I can see
In all of these comparisons between art and mathematics I am struck with a feeling that the writer is somehow trying to add a layer of legitimacy to the art by connecting it to mathematics or to science. I don't think this does a service to either the art or the mathematics.
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Four Types of Bayesian-Frequentist Comparisons
It is important when discussing different perspectives to keep clear what the vocabulary is. If you expand the problem set to include limited problems, with non-Normal distributions (such as Beta and Cauchy), then the differences start to become apparent.
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Twitter, Zombies, and the Fate of the World
Twitter, Zombies, and the Fate of the World is my presentation today at the Analytics without Borders Conference.
Dynamical systems are mathematical constructions containing multiple interacting parts which vary in …
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Mind Reader and Skepticism
From the archives, but I bumped into this on my computer and was reminded how cool of a demo for skepticism it is. Enjoy!
Here is a simple website which …
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Do we really need algebra 2 and calculus?
From time to time I hear proposals to restructure math or science secondary education. Two examples are an article in slate about algebra 2 and a popular ted talk about …
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Are there serious problems with evolution?
In their article, Top 10 problems with biological and chemical evolution, the Discovery Institute outlines their best critiques of evolution (i.e. biological evolution) and abiogenesis (i.e. chemical evolution …
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Philosophy of science and the burden of proof
I was just reminded about the difference between philosophy and science. I've written about this topic before here and here. This particular reminder came in the form of Blake Giunta's …
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Pascal's Wager Again some quick thoughts
I haven't written much on Pascal's Wager, but I had this small thought. Perhaps someday I'll flesh this out a bit more.
Introduction
In the standard Pascal’s Wager, the …
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Climate Change Point and Counterpoint
In this post, I am reacting to a very interesting and well researched post where a liberal argues that the climate science is not as settled as we hear. I …
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Can you guess my sign? Testing Astrology
A friend of mine who is interested in astrology claims that he can determine my astrological sign from some simple questions, and knowing me for years (although not knowing my …
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Even if determinism were true it wouldn't matter
Introduction
There is a great paper Thermal noise and the emergence of the arrow of time: A simple model that illustrates the notion of the role of uncertainty in the …
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Free Will On My Mind
Usually when thinking about free will my thoughts run in circles. However the recent talks by Sean Carroll were some of the clearest exposition on the topic. In summary we …
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Jaynes vs Gelman Bayes for Messy Data
I copied a comment on my old site, and am replying to it here. It is a fantastically interesting question, which I have been enjoying thinking about.
It refers to …
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Probability Does Extend Logic
In the article Probability theory does not extend logic David Chapman, the author, criticizes the claim that probability theory generalizes logic to cases with uncertainty. He is particularly scornful of …
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