Books

Books that I have written.

pyndamics3

Dynamical systems simulation in Python. Includes both continuous and stochastic simulation.

Stats for Everyone

An introductory stats book from a Bayesian perspective, including Python software.

Blog

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Bayesian vs Frequentist Perspectives An Excellent Explanation

Bayes

Jake VanderPlas has what I believe is the clearest, and most thorough, take-down of the frequentist approach to statistical inference. It's in four parts, so far. The third part, in …

#articles

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Statistical Heresies - The Movie Coming to a YouTube Channel Near You

The moment we've been all waiting for, Statistical Heresies the movie is out! You can watch it in a couple of places:

  • YouTube: You can hear me, but you might …

#presentations

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Turing Test Passed Now, Perhaps, Our Robotic Overlords Are Coming

There has been an announcement that the Turing Test has finally been passed! So a computer has fooled humans into thinking that the computer is a human, as proposed in …

#articles

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It's Unreasonable to Believe Some True Things A Comment about Presupossitionalism

In the frustrating debate between Matt Dillahunty and Sye Ten Bruggencate, linked below, an "argument" is put forward that belief in God is reasonable. If you are unfamiliar with presuppositional …

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Free, or Not-So-Free, Will Beyond the semantics

I felt compelled to write this post, for some reason.

Reading an interesting article about free will has gotten me thinking about it again, despite the fact that doing so …

#articles

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Do healing miracles happen? Unbelievable Project: Robby Dawkins & David Beebee - 15 March 2014

As part of the Unbelievable Project, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the Unbelievable podcast episodes satisfying a set of simple rules.

See here for a …

#Unbelievable Project

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A Good Bet Lost Proper Attitudes in Science and Life

clock

So I was sitting in the cafeteria the other day, and there was a clock which showed the wrong time and the second hand was being weird. I noted that …

#articles

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Pennies! An example from Statistical Inference for Everyone

SIE

I just added an example of simple model construction to my textbook, Statistical Inference for Everyone. It's a process I don't think I've ever seen in an intro stats book …

#projects

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Statistical Heresies Teaching Statistical Inference in the Bayesian Revolution

I'm giving a talk today, highlighting some of the current Bayesian/frequentist relationships as they relate to introductory statistics education. You can download the pdf here.

We live in a …

#presentations

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Supporting Dualism A Profound Distortion

I just finished listening to this excellent debate. I thought the proponents of dualism were credulous, and ignored the specific requests by the opponents to rule out alternatives. I'll get …

#articles

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Siblings and Astronomy Long Lost Sibling of the Sun Found

Sun

On a "science is darn cool" note, the sibling of the Sun has been found. It's a pretty straightforward idea, although technically challenging. Stars that are "born" from the same …

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Spurious Correlations A funny list of strangely correlated things

I saw this list of spurious correlations, including "US spending on science, space, and technology" correlates with "Suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation", "Number people who drowned by falling into …

#articles

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"Skeptics" vs "Realists" A proposed solution

The graphic below has circulated the internet for a while, and I think it worthy of comment. The intent of the graphic is to point out how silly those so-called …

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Dualism, Naturalism, and other Isms The Link between the Brain and the Mind

Haven't had a post in too long, and I hope to get back into things.

I was reading an article about dualism where they point out 6 reasons that naturalism …

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How to Dodge the Consequences of Belief Alister McGrath vs Richard Dawkins

So I was recently reminded of an old interview of Alister McGrath by Richard Dawkins. When I first listened to this, quite some time ago, I recall feeling that McGrath …

#articles

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Is Astrology Scientific? On the Possible Meanings of "Scientific"

In a recent article bemoaning the pseudoscientific attitudes of the public, I was struck by the following result: When given the question...

Astrology is

  1. scientific
  2. sort of scientific
  3. not at …

#articles

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Creationism Laid Bare

Seems as if everyone is talking about the recent Ken Ham vs Bill Nye debate on evolution and creation, so I figured I'd put in my two cents.

  1. I couldn't …

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Anyone using the term "scientific proof" doesn't know science

In my introduction to probability in class this week, I was asked if proof and evidence really meant the same thing. They don't. To summarize,

Proof does not exist in …

#articles