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Communicating about Uncertainty in Climate Change, Part I

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines for their 2007 report stipulated how its contributors were to convey uncertainties regarding climate change scientific evidence,...

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Communicating about Uncertainty in Climate Change, Part II

In my previous post I attempted to provide an overview of the IPCC 2007 report’s approach to communicating about uncertainties regarding climate change and its impacts. This time I want to focus on how...

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You Can Never Plan the Future by the Past

The title of this post is, of course, a famous quotation from Edmund Burke. This is a personal account of an attempt to find an appropriate substitute for such a plan. My siblings and I persuaded our...

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Writing about “Agnotology, Ignorance and Uncertainty”

From time to time I receive invitations to contribute to various “encyclopedias.” Recent examples include an entry on “confidence intervals” in the International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science...

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Expertise on Expertise

Hi, I’m back again after a few weeks’ travel (presenting papers at conferences). I’ve already posted material on this blog about the “ignorance explosion.” Numerous writings have taken up the theme...

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Can Greater Noise Yield Greater Accuracy?

I started this post in Hong Kong airport, having just finished one conference and heading to Innsbruck for another. The Hong Kong meeting was on psychometrics and the Innsbruck conference was on...

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An Ignorance Economy?

It’s coming up to a year since I began this blog. In my usual fashion, I set myself the unrealistic goal of writing a post every week. This is only the 37th, so I’ve fallen short by a considerable...

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The Stapel Case and Data Fabrication

By now it’s all over the net (e.g., here) and international news media: Tilburg University sacked high-profile social psychologist Diederik Stapel, after he was outed as having faked data in his...

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Scientists on Trial: Risk Communication Becomes Riskier

Back in late May 2011, there were news stories of charges of manslaughter laid against six earthquake experts and a government advisor responsible for evaluating the threat of natural disasters in...

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Statistical Significance On Trial

There is a long-running love-hate relationship between the legal and statistical professions, and two vivid examples of this have surfaced in recent news stories, one situated in a court of appeal in...

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A Book Ate My Blog

Sad, but true—I’ve been off blogging since late 2011 because I was writing a book (with Ed Merkle) under a contract with Chapman and Hall. Writing the book took up the time I could devote to writing...

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A Few (More) Myths about “Big Data”

Following on from Kate Crawford’s recent and excellent elaboration of six myths about “big data”, I should like to add four more that highlight important issues about such data that can misguide us if...

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Digital “poster” and Integration and Implementation Sciences Conference

I’ll indulge in a bit more shameless advertising here, but it’s directly relevant to this blog. First, I’m one among several plenary speakers at what’s billed as the First Global Conference on Research...

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Over-diagnosis and “investigation momentum”

One of my earlier posts, “Making the Wrong Decisions for the Right Reasons”, focused on conditions under which it is futile to pursue greater certainty in the name of better decisions. In this post,...

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Impact Factors and the Mismeasure of Quality in Research

Recently Henry Roediger III produced an article in the APA Observer criticizing simplistic uses of Impact Factors (IFs) as measures of research quality. A journal’s IF in a given year is defined as the...

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Can Greater Noise Yield Greater Accuracy?

I started this post in Hong Kong airport, having just finished one conference and heading to Innsbruck for another. The Hong Kong meeting was on psychometrics and the Innsbruck conference was on...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

An Ignorance Economy?

It’s coming up to a year since I began this blog. In my usual fashion, I set myself the unrealistic goal of writing a post every week. This is only the 37th, so I’ve fallen short by a considerable...

View Article


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The Stapel Case and Data Fabrication

By now it’s all over the net (e.g., here) and international news media: Tilburg University sacked high-profile social psychologist Diederik Stapel, after he was outed as having faked data in his...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Scientists on Trial: Risk Communication Becomes Riskier

Back in late May 2011, there were news stories of charges of manslaughter laid against six earthquake experts and a government advisor responsible for evaluating the threat of natural disasters in...

View Article

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Statistical Significance On Trial

There is a long-running love-hate relationship between the legal and statistical professions, and two vivid examples of this have surfaced in recent news stories, one situated in a court of appeal in...

View Article
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