Category Archives: Statistics

adventures in feminist video game fantasies

Posted on August 30, 2015 by christopher fisher

Feminists have been waging a campaign against video games. A frequent claim is that video games need to cater to the female demographic. They believe that their feminist notions should be inserted in mainstream releases of major computer and console … Continue reading →

Posted in Statistics, Women | Leave a comment

why economists are more reliable than doctors on health issues

Posted on May 2, 2015 by christopher fisher

Russ Roberts and Emily Oster explain exactly why Economists should be the more trusted individuals for health decisions. Roberts also explains why doctors are particularly ill-suited to make health related recommendations. The reason is that doctors generally do not understand … Continue reading →

Posted in Econ 101, Economics, Statistics | Leave a comment

bad statistics – car seat safety

Posted on April 30, 2015 by christopher fisher

News reporters are notoriously bad at basic comprehension of statistics. When it comes to child safety in cars, there is no exception. From CBSnews: For children, the back remains the safest place to ride. Children 12 and younger account for … Continue reading →

Posted in Statistics | Leave a comment

An Open Letter to Tim Jacks – Vaccinations and Risk

Posted on February 6, 2015 by christopher fisher

A response to this article in which Tim Jack explains how his child with Leukemia was exposed to measles. He lashes out at parents who do not vaccinate their children. Tim, First of all, I would like to say that … Continue reading →

Posted in Science, Statistics | 6 Comments

God and predictability

Posted on October 11, 2014 by christopher fisher

A standard Calvinist criticism about God’s prophecy as it relates to Open Theism is that there are too many free will agents for God to be able to accurately predict the future. This criticism fails on multiple levels. The first … Continue reading →

Posted in Calvinism, critical thinking, God, Omniscience, Open Theism, Statistics, Theology | 14 Comments

why women are underrepresented in video game creation

Posted on October 6, 2014 by christopher fisher

The short story: women just do not like programming and video game design. The long version from a female indie game designer. She points out, as we should all expect, that women actually get “perks” rather than discrimination in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Statistics, Video Games | Leave a comment

friedman calls out bad global warming statistics

Posted on September 27, 2014 by christopher fisher

There is a common claim that 97% of climate scientists agree that the main cause of Global Warming is mankind. David Friedman quotes one such study that repeats the claim: Bedford and Cook (2013) contains the following sentence: “Cook et … Continue reading →

Posted in Science, Statistics | Leave a comment

ban bossy – a case study in terrible statistics

Posted on March 31, 2014 by christopher fisher

Lately there has been a concerted push to ban the word “bossy”. The creator of this campaign quoted several studies in an effort to show that the term has negatively influenced young ladies. The problem with quoting statistics is that … Continue reading →

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friedman on cultural differences

Posted on March 19, 2014 by christopher fisher

From an article about the standard of living differences between Scandinavia and the US: A Scandinavian economist once stated to Milton Friedman: “In Scandinavia we have no poverty.” Milton Friedman replied, “That’s interesting, because in America among Scandinavians, we have … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Statistics | 1 Comment

stanford prison experiment

Posted on December 20, 2013 by christopher fisher

My favorite psychologist, Peter Gray, explains why some psychological studies are flawed. He uses the famous Zimbardo prison experiment as a prime example. For those who are unfamiliar, this experiment assigned random students to roles as guards and prisoners and … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Nature, Statistics | 1 Comment