Category Archives: probability

More Things That Are Not Arguments

Posted on 2013-04-22 by TJ

I recently had some interactions with anti-gun-control people (there is a lot of that about) in which one of them offered the following statement (which is not an argument): “if someone is really intent on hurting someone, even if they … Continue reading →

Posted in epistemology, probability, psychology, religion, science | Leave a comment

Supernatural Explanations

Posted on 2013-04-01 by TJ

Before talking about supernatural explanations, it’s a good idea to say something about explanations in general. An explanation is a causal account of a particular situation based on general principles, laws or abstractions. Causal accounts are general, explanatory accounts are … Continue reading →

Posted in epistemology, god, probability, psychology, quantum, religion, science | Leave a comment

More on Seasonal Markets

Posted on 2012-12-26 by TJ

Back in the spring I made some prognostications about the home price indices in the US that have turned out to be not so correct. I suggested that most of the “growth” in the Case-Shiller home price index was due … Continue reading →

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Things That Are Not Arguments

Posted on 2012-11-22 by TJ

This story of a group of Australian geologists who “undiscovered” an island in the Coral Sea clearly proves all of the following: Anti-science conservatism is true: Obviously if science can get an entire island wrong it must be the case … Continue reading →

Posted in bayes, epistemology, politics, probability, psychology, science | Leave a comment

Systematic vs Statistical Error

Posted on 2012-11-11 by TJ

I’ve seen a few people ask about why the election odds at electionprojection.com, 538, et al all fell in favour of the side with a significantly greater than 50% chance of winning. After all, if you predicted 10 senate races … Continue reading →

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Bayes’ Theorem for the Perplexed

Posted on 2012-11-05 by TJ

We live in the Age of Bayes, although many people aren’t up to speed on that yet. Bayesian methods are slowly percolating their way out of the physical sciences and into the wider world, and will slowly displace everything else. … Continue reading →

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Time and Chance

Posted on 2012-08-19 by TJ

There has been some discussion of late as to the role of chance in “mega-success”: super-stardom, best-sellerdom, etc. The argument is simple, and goes like this: given a population of individuals all of whom are about the same quality, the … Continue reading →

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Predictions

Posted on 2012-07-27 by TJ

In 1987 a group of science fiction writers and similar people were asked to predict what the future might look like in 25 years time… which is to say, in 2012 A quarter-century is in some ways not a very … Continue reading →

Posted in economics, history, life, prediction, probability, science, technology | Leave a comment

Quantum One-Time Pad

Posted on 2012-06-16 by TJ

The encryption scheme I wrote about yesterday is probably best described as a “quantum one-time pad”, although unfortunately that’s a term already taken by Bennett’s quantum key exchange protocol. But given that Alice randomly chooses the linear basis for each … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, probability, quantum, science, technology, thermodynamics | Leave a comment

Semi-classical Encryption

Posted on 2012-06-15 by TJ

There’s been a bit in the news lately about Kish’s classical encryption scheme, which is really quite clever. The idea is that in any circuit with resistance there is thermal noise–called Johnson noise–that depends on the total resistance of the … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, probability, quantum, science, technology, thermodynamics | 1 Comment